anyone heard or use provencia desktop 8? i can get it through school for free so i was thinking of just going with it. however i tried searching for it and havent been able to come up with anything.

also i have heard of good things about kerio (sp?). just wondering what version i should get. i've read that the newer version (4 i think) is pretty buggy and that alot of people stick with the older version. if this is the case, what version should i get and where to get it?

I can't find anything on provencia desktop 8, either.
Here are a couple more good, free, firewall options, that several of our members use:
Sygate Personal Firewall
ZoneAlarm

ok so i guess no go for provencia desktop 8. i've been reading other posts on this forum and from them i think i will stay away from zonealarm. doesnt seem to have alot of good opinions about them.

sygate and kerio on the other hand are diff. does anyone have a preference over the other? if not im might just try both of them and see which one i prefer. also, what version of each should i try to get? i heard that the latest one is not always the best.

I use and recommend Sygate Personal Firewall. The latest version is quite stable and runs on, as far as I know, every version of Windows. It has many good features, including logs,the abilility to manage permission by applications, and a backtrace and whois module.
Regards,
John

I agree 100 % and use it as well.

All,

I don't use Sygate but I find it very respectable. However I wonder what the acquisition of Sygate by Symantec will do for the future of it's respectability? I for one in the last few years have lost all trust and respect for Symantec/Norton products.

Link to NetworkWorld Article about Symatec acquisition

Be (Symantec) Safe

Da Animal

Good question. I too am not a great fan of Norton, but hopefully all they want to get ahold of is the corporate side of the software. It would be wise to download and save the latest version of the firewall from Sygate, just in case Norton changes the free policy for it. Fortunately, firewalls to not need updated definitions.
Regards,
John

any issue about sygate and kerio using up too much system resources? also i can just get the latest verions from their website? i think i will run sygate on mine and kerio on my dads and see which one we like better

Firewalls are not usually memory hogs, at least Sygate has not been for me. Your idea of testing each on a different computer is valid, especially if the OS is the same for both. I am sure the members would be interested in your comparison of the two.

Regards,
John

i just got spygate v5.6. so far it just keeps asking me alot of questions everytime i go online, but alteat it works. i was wondering if there is some tutorial on this somewhere. right now im just reading the help file and that kinda helps a little, although i am still confused on alot of stuff, especially about the logs and the graphs.

also i've found out that the stealth mode browsing is only for pro. im not exactly sure what that is.

another thing is i went here <http://scan.sygate.com/> and did the quick scan and the stealth scan. what kind of result should i get? for the stealth scan all the ports seemed to be blocked. im guessing thats a good thing?

I was never much of a believer in letting a software maker test its own products. The results can be rather, errr...... predictable.

Try testing these with Shield's Up.

yeah i've also done that but i dont know how to make sense of the result.

You can get the Sygate User's Manual here.

Here are my results from Shields Up with Sygate installed

GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2005-08-20 at 22:05:43

Results from scan of ports: 0-1055

0 Ports Open
0 Ports Closed
1056 Ports Stealth
---------------------
1056 Ports Tested

ALL PORTS tested were found to be: STEALTH.

TruStealth: PASSED - ALL tested ports were STEALTH,
- NO unsolicited packets were received,
- NO Ping reply (ICMP Echo) was received.

If ports 1-1056 are shown to be in "stealth mode" it means that your computer's address will not be recognised by unwanted incomming packets. So for their purpose, you do not exist.
Regards,
John

ah ok...i think i got the same results as Bear so woohoo

also, what is "nt kernel and system". thats the program that sygate blocks all the time but im not sure if i am suppose to block it. other application that is being blocked right now are "application layer gateway service" and "lsa shell." do i just keep blocking these?

What is your operating system? XP?

yeah its xp home