What's a reliable firewall? (free and not-so-free)

Ozzy38

Join Date 05/2007

What's a reliable firewall? (free and not-so-free)

To use while playing online

I have Look 'n' Stop, but that hates online gaming and won't see or connect to multiplayer games.

Whoever's actually involved with LnS haven't given even a syllable about why it isn't compatible with Steam or even a "we'll keep you updated", and the LnS forum isn't helpful to us normal folk who don't know specs and all that bollocks, in fact they are pretty rude. Geek Elitism I call it, after my encounters with the Steam forums...

Anyway, I originally figured I need to get a new firewall, but I suppose I could just get a reliable one to use when I play a game online, then go back to LnS (if it's not as good, obviously).

So what shall I use? Any free ones that work with Steam and online multiplayer that aren't rubbish?

Google says Comodo (never heard of it before though), Armor somethingorother (ditto), ZoneAlarm (I stopped using that because it ended up spazzing out for no reason) and Kaspersky (too expensive).

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Quoting ElanaAhova,

reply 4

Doesn't windows come with a firewall? My Xp says the firewall is 'up.' Am I missing something?

The XP firewall is a decent inbound, but as some have noted, useless outbound. Along with the software firewall of choice (I prefer none), I strongly recommend a hardware one as well.

The new MS Security Essentials seems like Microsoft if learning - but I will wait to see about that one (time will tell). For a good 3rd party one, Zone Alarm is your best bet.

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Quoting Dr Guy,

reply 51

The new MS Security Essentials seems like Microsoft if learning - but I will wait to see about that one (time will tell). For a good 3rd party one, Zone Alarm is your best bet.

MSE 2.0 doesn't change anything in the firewall. It just uses Vista and 7s filtering platform to check for malicious traffic.

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I ended up using Comodo, and then was given a year's worth of Comodo Internet Security 2011 Complete.

Now I've encountered the 'cmdagent' bug. A bug that has been around for years, it uses up ridiculous amount of memory. After only minutes of startup, you'll get your little balloon in the corner saying windows memory is too low yada yada.

Shocking that such a massive bug, one that guarantees a loss of a lot of customers (how many people play games online and use Steam?) has been going for so many years.

This is VERY bad...

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The free ZoneAlarm firwall works nicely for me along side MSE for an anti-virus (Windows Firewall turned off) and I also periodically scan with Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware.

If that does not work for you this might help find more info: [link removed as it's pointlessly out of date - Admin]

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in my opinion, in this case the main point is not how good a firewall is , but if it has got a Gaming Profile settings option or not.At the moment, the only one I know with this feature is Kaspersky firewall, integrated in Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 and now in the first 2012 version (released just now).

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