Scoobedoo

Hi All,

I've upgrade a machine from windows 2000 to windows 2003 and it appears Blackice no longer functions correctly (it bluescreens the server).

Does anyone know of another firewall product just as easy to use as blackice that I can install on a Windows 2003 server?

Thanks

Daz34

Sygate Personal Firewall is superb.

Darren

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Blackice is cack. Older versions of blackice also Bsod XP, I didnt find this out for weeks, caused me no end of grief. Norton Internet Security is pretty good to. If you have a firewall/router thou, theres no point in additional software.

Lum

Yes there is, these software firewalls also stop unauthorised software (namely spyware) from getting out again. I agree withyou that Blackice is cack though.
I hear Kerio is pretty good.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Depends how good u setup ya router firewall and its options I guess

Scoobedoo

I'm know naff all about setting a router utililises its firewall functionality so I ain't going down that route.

I Liked BlackICE's easy to use interface and it stopped all hacker attempts which kept me happy.

I'll try some of the other products mentioned above and see what happens.

cheers

Chris L

There is nothing wrong in running two firewalls - in fact a lot of companies have started doing this. Theory being that you limit the chance of a single vulnerability compromising your network. It is exactly the same reason why we now recommend that companies run different anti virus engines on their gateways and desktops.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Sorry thats wrong. Blackice doesnt stop alot of really basic attacks.

Scoobedoo

Hi,

Just tried sygate personal firewall and it seems ok .. expect it didn't block outlook web access traffic through from the public network not even flagging it (port 80 stuff)??? Apart from that it seems pretty informative.


A question to any gurus:

I setup an advanced rule to allow any machines on the local subnet to fully access this machine. That works fine however just trying to understand if inbound traffic from the public network would still be translated into local traffic thus making my firewall client think it ok.

Thanks
Frank

Cold Turkey

If you run it in paranoid mode it stops all network based attacks. it also has a very small footprint and fast decode engine. it doesn't do viruses but then it wasn't designed to. if you are running the correct version for xp it will not bluescreen.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

No it doesnt! U can send certain attacks that are simply not logged or 'caught'.

I know its not a virus checker

To be honest after the problems it caused me in XP on an earlier incompatible version, I wouldnt touch it with a bargepole.

Cold Turkey

wasn't aware you were on about sending attacks .... I'm not really interested in blocking outbound attacks .... if your PC hasn't been exploited then you won't be sending any attacks .... unless you want to


fair enough. it was a bit nasty. I was convinced my power supply was faulty because of the intermittant reboots.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

hah exactly. I changed RAM, GFx card ,mobo and PSU because of it! Fortunately I had these parts as spares. When I realised nothing made any difference, I started trailing the net for BSOD/IRQL errors. As you know this can be such a wide area of problems it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Then one day about a month ago I stumbled upon a forum thread purely by chance which mentioned Blackice 2.5/2.9 that caused IRQL bsods in XP. I couldnt believe it was the cause, but there u go If I hadnt found that thread I would still be troubleshooting now.

Lum

No hardware based firewall is going to stop a bit of dodgy software from phoning home via HTTP on port 80, unless you happen to have a list of all IP addresses currently used for the receiving end of spyware? if so can I have it please