The pros and cons of Windows Firewall

[dbarrow]

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/security/soa/The_pros_and_cons_of_Windows_Firewall/0,39023764,39252830,00.htm
By Mike Mullins, TechRepublic
21 April 2006 10:48 AM

... Final thoughts
As far as I'm concerned, a firewall mechanism that only works one way is a security feature -- not a firewall. Thanks to viruses, worms, Trojans, and a host of other malware and spyware that arrive on your computer daily, you need to be able to control communications from both directions.

Every computer connected to any network (e.g., dial-up, Ethernet, or wireless) needs a firewall, and Windows Firewall just isn't up to the task. Find yourself a free firewall or pay for one from a reputable vendor, but don't let Windows Firewall fool you into thinking it completely protects your computer. Half a firewall is no better than no firewall at all. ...

*Uh! What he said!

[jcampi]

I was using a variety of different firewalls, but removed them because they caused so much trouble. Now I'm using Windows XP firewall and love it. The performance boost is fantastic. I never realized the other firewalls placed such a drag on my PC. I know the Windows firewall isn't perfect and doesn't protect you against every threat, but I also have a hardware firewall with my Netgear router that helps. I'm not going back to a crappy firewall again until I can find one that works and doesn't put such a drag on the PC.

[mylanta]

That's what I have always said John, until you get away from it, you don't realize the problem you have with it. I remember litening to a certain sys-op for years singing the praises of Norton Antivirus. It was the best thing since sliced bread. The day we did the eBay radio show, he admitted to me it was a big drag on his resources so he ditched it. But he noticed that when he downloaded Avg to try it, and never would have noticed that until he removed it, and because of his stubborn belief he never did for years.
Symantec users are fanatics, and it's as if they are mesmerized until they get out from under the emotional shackles, then they are in amazement they lived like that. I felt the same way quitting smoking 10 years ago.

[casey]

Symantec users are fanatics, and it's as if they are mesmerized until they get out from under the emotional shackles, then they are in amazement they lived like that. I felt the same way quitting smoking 10 years ago.

I guess you can call me a fanatic because I have used Symantec because they work, are cheaper, and being as I have used and are using AVG and Avast AV at the same time, am not mesmerized because I see no drain on my system. I guess you could call anything that is running a drain if you want to. Maybe it was something to do with the speed of the system?

[mylanta]

Larry you are a fanatic....(kidding of course more like an addict). You cannot see that Norton is a serious drain on your resources but running fast machines with broadband, you may never notice it. Try dialup sometime with the same system and you might see it.

[dbarrow]

Relative speed of the system does make a difference whether you "feel" it or not.
Pull up Task Manager and see how much it is consuming.
Nod32 kernel pulls 17.5K, but I don't notice it one little bit!

[mylanta]

My theory on outgoing worries? If my resistance is so good nothing can get in, then there is nothing to dial out. Every week I run Pest Patrol and Spybot and never find any spyware. Between Spywareblaster and Pest patrol and Nod32, nothing ever gets in here, so why do I need some piece of sludgeware ripping off my resources and wasting my time with stupid notices of things that don't matter.

[casey]

Larry you are a fanatic....(kidding of course more like an addict). You cannot see that Norton is a serious drain on your resources but running fast machines with broadband, you may never notice it. Try dialup sometime with the same system and you might see it.


Rich, I ran dialup using slower machines with NAV for years and never minded or noticed that the reason it was slow was NAV. I'd say you were blaming the slowness of your dialup on Nav.

The one thing I never understood was you said you got tired of the time it took NAV to check your E-Mail. I was just wondering how you knew it was NAV slowing your machine and not the E-mail. If I check my E-Mail and there is none It pops up right away. If I have E-Mail it takes longer according to how much E-Mail I have. By turning off NAV I still have to wait according to how much E-Mail I am going to receive. To me the seconds I have to wait are minimal..

[mylanta]

Larry,
When you bring in email with Nav, you can see their little eye candy envelope making motions checking it. Disable it or exit it and the email pops right up.I remember being able to see that.

[casey]

Well I guess it never bothered me because I just checked now and the little eye candy envelope popped up and that fast the E-Mail was there. Maybe I'm just not in as much of a hurry as other people. Like I said the more E-Mail you get the longer it takes.

[jcampi]

I have to agree with Casey. I have used Norton AV 2006 for some time and don't have any issue with it. Rich, have you really given Norton AV 2006 a try? It really doesn't cause a drag on my PC.

[mylanta]

No John I haven't but truthfully, the only thing I ever saw in 2000,1,2,3,4,5 which I did use, were they get successively worse and I will not put anything in my systems anymore that require a special tool to remove them, I reserve that for virus. That is too much to ask!
You guys will learn some day as all of us have and I realize you cannot see what the rest of us are talking about. Remember, most of us here were Norton users who "saw the light" and got "reborn". You just have not yet had the experience.

[jcampi]

Okay. Well, 2006 might surprise you. You can't even tell it's running. The comments I made about NOD32 resulted in me using the product.

[mylanta]

But John,
Go out and read on any big forum, Nav 2006 is a horror story for install problems, whacking operating systems, people are taking it off and throwing the box away all over the world, but you need to look an a larger more active forum. I see it at least 5 times a day on Cyber tech.

[jcampi]

Rich, I've installed Norton '06 on several machines and never ran into the issues you suggest. No impact to other programs. No issue removing it. No issue with updates. Experience is the best teacher. If you tried it and experienced these issues they'd have more impact to me than certain reviews.

[mylanta]

John,
"If I tried these issues what I say would have more impact?"
4 years ago with Norton 2002 on my system eSafe found 5 Trojans that I was able to surmise by using restore image files, had been on my system for 6 months. When I wrote that on the BBS along with facts that Norton does not remove trojans, did you immediately remove Norton and go to eSafe? No you let it go in one ear and out the other. Until you actually experience some of the things most of us have, this will all seem like a rant to you, I know that. I am not risking any more of my systems ever again with Symantec software, I will let you do that for me.
I was a beta tester for a program called Norton System Recovery 2 years ago, After installing it and creating an image file that would not restore, my pc failed to shut down. After exhaustive testing I realized that that program had caused that. So did Norton Ghost 9.0 if you had Kaspersky Antivirus onboard. Symantec knew that yet told no one. I'm sorry, I will not be trying any more Norton products on any of my pc's ever again.

[casey]

But John,
Go out and read on any big forum, Nav 2006 is a horror story for install problems, whacking operating systems, people are taking it off and throwing the box away all over the world, but you need to look an a larger more active forum. I see it at least 5 times a day on Cyber tech.

Rich, Are you really saying that you see AT LEAST 5 TIMES A DAY people complaining or taking Norton off their computer. That means for just this month alone that Cybertech has 120 people saying they are taking Norton off. Now this could be right as I con't know my way around Cyber Tech but I casually looked through (I believe it was software) back to the beginning of March and only found 2 or 3 mentions of NAV and they weren't to
delete it. Maybe you could tell me which forum has this 120 (April alone) Just think March has another at least another 150 so they should be easy to find. I'd really like to see what problems they are having...

[casey]

John,
"If I tried these issues what I say would have more impact?"
4 years ago with Norton 2002 on my system eSafe found 5 Trojans that I was able to surmise by using restore image files, had been on my system for 6 months. When I wrote that on the BBS along with facts that Norton does not remove trojans, did you immediately remove Norton and go to eSafe? No you let it go in one ear and out the other. Until you actually experience some of the things most of us have, this will all seem like a rant to you, I know that. I am not risking any more of my systems ever again with Symantec software, I will let you do that for me.

Since we are telling war stories here's one that I wrote about and was completely ignored. It seems that a lot of people on these forums recommend an online scanning by "HouseCall" to check your AV and your one of them. Well a while back I was at a friends house who didn't want to spend any more money on her computer. She's a retired lady and money is scarce. I told her I would put the free version of AVG on for her but wanting to make an impression I said first we would make sure there was no virus by running an online scan. After running "HouseCall" and getting the no virus found I stood there and showed her how her computer was clean,I then went to install AVG and after the install I proceeded to show her how to run a scan. Was I suprised when AVG found 5 (FIVE) virus that Housecall didn't . I still see people on the forums recommending to run Housecall.

[mylanta]

Larry,
I haven't used Housecall for over a year now. There was a time when it was the best but not recently. My recommendation here and there has been
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ (http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/)#

http://www.ewido.net/en/ (http://www.ewido.net/en/)

[mylanta]

Larry,
There was a time about 1 month ago, where almost every other post I answered was a Norton uninstall problem. That was true in Novembe-r December as well when many people were buying it. In those time pweiods there were probably more than 5 a day. It has been quiet recently until the one I posted this AM so there are cycles. I can say I have easily involved myself with 100 posts on the install issue alone since November, but as to what it will be for the year who knows. I only run between Cyber tech and here as far as where I post while I do read other forums.

[casey]

Larry,
There was a time about 1 month ago, where almost every other post I answered was a Norton uninstall problem. That was true in Novembe-r December as well when many people were buying it. In those time pweiods there were probably more than 5 a day. It has been quiet recently until the one I posted this AM so there are cycles. I can say I have easily involved myself with 100 posts on the install issue alone since November, but as to what it will be for the year who knows. I only run between Cyber tech and here as far as where I post while I do read other forums.

Is this your way of telling us that you were exagerrating about NAV? I didn't see anywhere that this was back in
November- December It said"I see it at least 5 times a day on Cyber tech" I asked what forum because I went back to the beginning of March and saw few mentions of NAV. And most of them were just questions .
I did notice that you went to a different board to get the one person complaining about NAV. It should have dawned on you that someone can dislike a company so much that they will say anything to discredit them. What's to stop me from joing Cyber Tech and just making things up to make a product look bad. I can't believe you hate Symantec that much.

[mylanta]

Larry I'm a liberal. Hate isn't in my vocabulary. Conservatives hate.
What is the big difference between 5 times a day and 35 times a day 3 times in the same time period. The average of a series of numbers divided by another number spread out into 4-5 months ends up adding up to the same thing 105.
Does it bother me that i think every product they have is flawed with the exception of Ghost 10? Yes it does. But that is my opinion based on the facts of what their products have either done or not done to my systems.
I am highly suspect of anyting they make, and they just added to that by buying the best firewall out there (in my opinion) and killing it. Am I happy about that, well no of course not. I accept that you love Norton Products. I accept that many do. I assume it's because you have had wonderful problem free times with everything they make. If you spent time on bigger forums, you would note that you are in the minority amongst forum users, but so what? I have had nothing but trouble with everything they make. Let me recount so there can be no misunderstanding.
Prior to 2003, Norton was the only antivirus program I used. An online scan by Trend Micro, backed up by eSafe, showed the presence of 5 trojans in my system for over 6 months causing me to switch out. looking back, the system drag for all those years, that I perceived even though I loved the program, and the fact that it could only point out virus, never clean a file, had been adding up for me and made me curious. Since that time I have yet to see any other antivirus I have tested need to quarantine every virus it indicated as Norton does. In fact every other antivirus I used repulsed the virus making it a non issue rather than letting them in and quarantining them, which I felt is a much safer process.
GoBack is a wonderful product also. So easy to use that you had to uninstall it to use Ghost or Drive Image to make an image file if it was onbaord, and Symantec GHost, was the same company, and then reinstall GoBack when done.Wow what a professional program that was. The GoBack program to create image files it would work with, was unable to work with XP so it went out with the bath water. It was called Take too and the world famous software creatores at Symantec, never managed to make work with XP. And the icing on the cake was when I found a series of folders when Goback restored to an earlier date, where they could not have existed on c drive, but were there from the future, and that possibility, I didn't even want to think about.
Then along comes Symantec Professional System recovery, to keep my pc's rebooting all the time without being able to shut down. Or maybe it was the Norton update that slowed Quicken programs to a crawl about 3 years ago? Or possibly it was the the Norton update that disabled Office 97 about 4 years ago and made it come up with an erroneous missing file error with no clue as to why? That same winner would not allow installing Office 97 either until that was fixed.And troubel shooting those issues, was amongst some of the best fun I ever had?
Did you ever try making cdr's with any of the Ghost 2002 or earlierversions. That was fun, especially when they would not restore. Yeah you know I cannot imagine why I don't like Norton either, but can I end with one thought? Nod32 never did any of that to any program. I never have to shut it off to install any software and it has never interfered with the running of anything in my systems, and I have never had a virus or trojan in any system I own in 3+ years of running it. None of what I just said has ever been true with Norton in 3+ years of use, in my personal experience. But I must admit I would feel safer about letting virus into my systems than running any more Norton programs. Now this is my experience. I understand your experience with Norton is all "bliss" so why should you feel like I do? I cannot imagine.

[casey]

What is the big difference between 5 times a day and 35 times a day 3 times in the same time period. The average of a series of numbers divided by another number spread out into 4-5 months ends up adding up to the same thing 105.

It seems your changing your story now...Are you now saying that you had 35 people post they were deleting NAV in one day and this happened three times?

Well after reading all your problems with Norton and since you stopped using any Norton products, I would assume you've had 3 1/2 years of problem free computing. Funny you've been using Nod32 without any Virus for 3 1/2 years and I've been using NAV for twice that (plus) without any viruses.

I've had many programs over the years that didn't perform like they were suppose to and I just stopped using them. I sure didn't start a vendetta against them like you did against Symantec. I could care less if you praise Nod32 but it's unnecessary to try and demean those of us that find NAV works to our satisfaction.
Was this sentence necessary.

I accept that you love Norton Products.

I don't love any program, I just use them..

If you look back Rich, it seems you manage to get Norton into any debate and I guess you'd like it better if your statements would go unchallenged. I only challenge the ones that I think are unfair...

[mylanta]

Yes it sure feels like 35 times in one day 3 times is more like what was happening but i didn't know you would ask the question so I didn't keep a log. I don't feel at all like I am exxaggerating but I can keep posting to that thread if I see some major ones. I would rather not.
Larry I love Nod32 just like I now love my Amd 4200 cpu and the unit I built with it's Biostar mobo. In three weeks I may kick it across the floor because it becomes a nightmare, who knows(sometimes they work better after a good bash). Don't you really love the programs that make computing fun? I find that I really like Quicken Home and Business, Word Perfect, Space Ace (regrettably), Diskeeper, Adobe Acrobat and Pest Patrol. I can't stand Paperport and never did like it because it is so damn buggy (having nothing to do with Scansoft lack of customer service), Roxio anything, Norton anything, Creative any software, MacAfee anything, Nero anything....there are times I use a program I can't stand because I feel I have to.
The last thing I want to do is try to demean you for using anything. We are what we experience and I think over the years somehow I make you feel that way at times, and I'm sorry. All I am is opinionated and sometimes not exactly diplomatic, but the most I am is curious how a company builds such strong customer loyalty with god awful software (my opinion only).See I can't help it!
Thinking back on it Doug B and I used to have this debate all the time where he defended Norton AV and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I believe Rob S used it and felt really good about it until he like Doug and I found vermin on his system. There are many other in our group who used to feel like you do, and are now confirmed Nod users. They don't complain about the interface of Nod32 (which I admit is awful but didn't buy it for that). So why not let's let it go at that and I won't assume about you anymore and I will try to be objective as possible (which for me is admittedly difficult on certain subjects)....

[dbarrow]

This flame war dates back .... how many years?
I recall it going on in W98!

Maybe I have a little more patience. I spend a little more time before going to a bigger hammer....

We have all had our "product of the time" that was the quintisential must have of the day.
There were many that worked just fine for me but must have come boxed with demons for Rich.
Then there are those that work like a charm on one machine but refuse to cooperate on another.
There were those we swore by that failed just when we needed them most...

One of the major benefits of this group has been the cooperation (including the flames) over the years in trying and testing new products. Fighting over them has been healthy and productive.
If not for Rich (and his Hammer of Thor), I wouldn't be using Nod32 or Acronis, both of which have proven an asset to me.

We often get stuck on some software because "it works for me". We are loathe to change something on our machines because it is working. Without experimentation like this, we would never know that there is something that does the same job better.

Keep those fires burning!

[mylanta]

Good Point DB and it's easy to get set in your ways (especially as we grow younger).
I like to test new products when they come out, but am growing weary of testing updated versions of old prograsm, as there seldom is really enough change to make sense taking the time. Typical with antivirus programs, programs get scrapped or heavily changed, and we need to know where to look when this happens. Many of us were so contented as to virtually fall asleep with Sygate, and then the rug got pulled out and now I regret not having another place to go. I wasn't prepared and cannot find a replacement I can reccomend. If Nod32 went out tomorrow, well Bit Defender and Kaspersky are perfect replacements.
We need to avoid compacency with technology. In fact complacency and technology are two words that should never be used together.
I did bring Acronis to most of you but you should know I have tested Nti backup, Retrosepct Express and I do have Ghost 10.0 onboard and in use.