RE: Re: [OT] ZoneAlarm alternatives ??

["Dean Barrett" <dean@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for those thoughts Ian.

Everything we do is through a Vigor router doing NAT - so I suppose that
sorts our Firewall issue.

I still think I need a suitable AV to protect against the users themselves
:)

I shall give NOD32 a go - looks sensible pricing upto 10 users.



Thanks



Dean.


-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Ian Lowe
Sent: 02 October 2007 09:53
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Re: [OT] ZoneAlarm alternatives ??

My suggestion is to basically not bother.

If you really must have a personal firewall installed (and I don't think
you
do need to) then use the windows firewall.

Ultimately, these things hig resources, get in the way and offer a
miniscule
amount of protection.

if you have a firewall at the edge of your network, or a router which
performs NAT from a trusted 192.168.x.y or 10.x.y.z network out onto the
Internet, you simply do not need a personal firewall product.

If you have a larger network (ie, more than 25 machines) then there is
something to be said for internal firewalls to stop things spreading, but
for a typical home network? screw it.

I have disabled the firewalls on our internal PCs for the last couple of
years. It's faster, easier to share resources and in that entire time we
have not seen a single problem.

Personal Firewall products are a complete waste of time - a cheap-as- chips
NAT based router is more secure and protects the whole network without
hitting everyone's performance.

Ian.