Firewall discussion

Hi,

I am using windows xp with the latest service packs and updates. I am using the default firewall that comes with it.

Can anyone prove with links that this isn't good enough on a windows xp machine with latest service packs and updates?

The irony - titled "SP2's firewall is not good enough":

http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39163267,00.htm

:)

It's year old though so if it's still accurate article, I don't know.

Micro$oft have admitted that the WindowsXP firewall is only a basic firewall.

For stronger security I recommend Zone Alarm. It is free with free updates. However, if you have a little cash to spare, why not buy a router with a built in hardware firewall? They offer much greater security. But remember, nothing is 100% secure.

Whilst I can't 100% disprove it, I will just say that I do not run AV software and only use the built-in firewall (SP2, same as you).

I also have a static IP, so if anyone wanted to target my machine, I'm a sitting duck.

I have yet to suffer a virus infection or be botnetted (or similar). Perhaps I'm just lucky.

I do not run software downloaded from p2p unless I am totally sure it is OK. Usenet downloads are subject to scrutiny (I check in the newsgroup to see if others have had a problem).

I am very clued up on what to do and what not to do with emails and I use Opera as my main browser, Firefox as secondary and IE only when I need to visit my local council's website to pay my council tax.

I generally keep up-to-date with patches, though I try to leave a 1 or 2 week lapse before applying them just in case someone reports a security problem in a latest patch. It's easier to upgrade than it is to downgrade.

If you've got family members using your computer for email or web browsing, you could do far worse than invest in VMWare (or similar) and let them only use a virtual machine, which can never infect the host PC.

My approach to protecting my computer is to not connect to the internet on my PC and only connect on my PowerBook, but I realize that's not practical for most people.

Or take a old computer, and set it up as a hardware firewall.

Grab an old computer, grab smoothwall(The software part of this hardware firewall) and install them, Set it up and bobs your uncle fred's your aunt. ¬_¬

I've got plenty of old hardware sitting around, and I did infact have my main PC (and Xbox and laptop and guest PC's) hooked up to a switch which then went to a Win2k3 machine running DHCP and NAT which then had a 2nd NIC connected to my ADSL router.

No firewall in place, I just semi-relied on NAT to offer some protection (and NAT is pretty good for the job).

Since I went with Zen internet and got 8 real IP's, my gear connects straight to ADSL via the switch with my router acting as DHCP server handing out the 5 usable IP's to anything connected. This opens my gear up to the world, so I'm thankful for XP's firewall (plus I turned off a few services).

I get good pings to gameservers this way ;)

http://www.jetico.com/