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[jazz]

Has anyone had experience with the Comodo Personal Firewall (a free download)?  I am reviewing my options before my McAfee AV and Firewall come up for renewal (came with the machine and have worked ok but I don't like the latest upgrade very much).

I am planning to use Avast for my anti virus but am not sure for Firewall between Kerio and Comodo.  I know Kitz has had a good experience of Kerio but the latest Comodo offerings seems to be steadily improving and I wonder whether to try their firewall.

I have a hardware firewall in my router and my ISP provides a firewall too but I would still like to have a software firewall on my own machine.  I may be paranoid ( ) but whilst I'm all for belt and braces I see no reason not to add a bit of string to the safety precautions too!

[kitz]

Hi

Im afraid Ive never used Comodo so I cant give you any personal experience.   I normally just install Kerio on any new build or fix PC jobbies. 

As regards to my own network - I turned my software firewall off about 4 years ago when I realised that it wasn't doing anything much as my router/NAT was catching everything and the only thing the software  firewall was doing was taking up resources on the local machines.

However, I can understand that many people want to install both - I do have a firewall which I use on the lappy when its being taken elsewhere.

Hopefully someone who has used Comodo will comment

[jazz]

Thanks for that response Kitz.  I think the silence on Comodo says quite a bit and I will go for Kerio!

I have had no problems or "intrusions" since installing my router but I want a software firewall on my machine to "hold on" to things if ever there is a problem on my PC so that I don't pass anything on to others.  It looks like Kerio will do that job fine so I'll give it a go.  My McAfee subscription still has a few months to run so I have plenty of time to try others before making any final decision.  Anyway I'll uninstall McAfee in the next few days and try Avast and Kerio.

Thanks again for your comments.

[kitz]

Good luck - let us know how it goes.

[jazz]

I downloaded Avast! this morning after uninstalling my McAfee Security Centre (I used Windows Add/Remove programs but also downloaded and used the McAfee Removal Tool to clear all the bits and pieces away).  My first impression was a good one (though I can see it is likely to slow some processes down through its operation but not enough to bother me as long as the anti virus works well).  As soon as I had scanned and checked that the computer was still clean I went on to download Kerio Personal Firewall.  It seemed less straightforward than I expected to find the Home Evaluation Freeload page on their site (as opposed to the paid for version) but once I found it the download and installation was easy and I like the look of the program.

Both of these programs have clear and straightforward controls and reporting systems which I like very much.  After the last upgrade McAfee had become so much like going through a set of Russian Dolls to find even simple bits of information nested within sub menus that I found it very awkward and unsatisfying to use.  I am optimistic about these two new ones however and hope that they continue to perform well over the coming weeks. 

Thanks for your comments which I found very helpful and reassuring.

[kitz]

...  and thank you for taking the time to write about your experiences of installation.

IMHO one of the good things about forums etc is that they can be used as a record to share information such as this and can therefore also be beneficial to others at some point in the future.

[tickmike]

Hi Jazz.
 I have used ZoneAlarm for years at home and at a charity run school 30 computers and have no problems with it,
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/catalog_main.jsp
Look for the FREE one on home page (Bottom left).

I use a hardware firewall for my network now, you use an old computer for it.
http://www.smoothwall.org/
Michael.

[jazz]

Thanks for that tickmike.  I'll bear it in mind for the future.  I have a hardware firewall via my router (Netgear DG834GT) which has always done a very good job.  I hadn't realised that it was possible to use an old PC as a hardware firewall - just never thought about it I suppose! I want the software firewall to monitor outgoings from my PC both for my sake and for the sake of other net users.  Kerio seems fine so far but advice and suggestions are always welcome!

[tickmike]

Thanks for that tickmike.  I'll bear it in mind for the future.  I have a hardware firewall via my router (Netgear DG834GT) which has always done a very good job.  I hadn't realised that it was possible to use an old PC as a hardware firewall - just never thought about it I suppose! I want the software firewall to monitor outgoings from my PC both for my sake and for the sake of other net users.  Kerio seems fine so far but advice and suggestions are always welcome!

Your are welcome Jazz.
Smoothwall is Linux based and very solid,it will run on a 486 upwards, It can be used for one machine or to protect a school or a firms network with 100's of machines, It has a built in 'Proxy Server' which is useful to see a log of what url's  are being used by your network and you can block any website if you want.
You have to turn off the router firewall, but you can still have software firewalls as well on each machine.
Smoothwall has a world wide help forum.
You can download the free software, then burn an image to a CD rom, then load that into your old computer and it self loads, configure a few settings and you have a firewall that nobody has got into yet.

Michael.

[mr_chris]

I can vouch for smoothwall myself and it's ease of setting up.

I have it running on a PII 400 with 64MB of RAM and a 4GB hard disk - and it hasn't been rebooted in months! It just works™.

The only thing I have done to it, other than install it, is modify one of the firewall scripts to allow PPTP VPN traffic to pass through the firewall to be handled by an internal Win2k3 VPN server.