TSGL: Online Armor Personal Firewall

[Russell W. Coover]

Mike,

I don't know a thing about the Armor Personal Firewall except what I read in
your post. However, I do know something about the Windows Vista Firewall
which you said "I understand is not much good anyway."

Windows Vista Firewall may not be the best Firewall available for Vista. But
for most of us, it is enough to keep you safe. Actually, it is a pretty good
firewall. It's main weakness is that it (like previous Windows Firewalls)
does not stop applications on your computer from "calling home". That is, it
monitors incoming internet communication, but it does not monitor outgoing
internet communication. At least that is the way it acts as a default. It
also, by default, will not allow you to create a log of attempts to contact
your PC from the outside.  

The Vista Firewall, is, however effective if you are careful about what you
download on the internet, and, frankly, I use it on all three of my Vista
machines. In addition, it is possible to go into the firewall a change it's
configuration to block outgoing messages. Microsoft did not make it easy to
do so because they (probably correctly) felt that novices may be terrified.
It is done by opening up the Search box, and typing in "wf.msc" without the
quotes marks, of course) and then dowuble clicking the result. Or, if you
have added "Run" to your Start Menu as I have, you can type it in there. 

Using that applet, you can configure your computer to stop software from
sending outbound communication and you can make Windows log all attempts
from the outside which you can read with Notepad.

The Windows Vista Firewall is good, and can be made very good.

Russ Coover    

-----Original Message-----
From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
Behalf Of Mike Ferrell
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 3:03 PM
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
Subject: TSGL: Online Armor Personal Firewall

I recently saw a rating of several paid and free firewalls.  At the top was
the free Online Armor Personal Firewall so I decided to try it out.  After
installing I immediately had PC shutdown problems and had to reboot in safe
mode.  Ultimately, I ended up uninstalling it and doing a System Restore to
alleviate the problem.  I just recently bought this new PC with Vista.  It
came with Norton trialware so I have turned off the Windows Firewall which I
understand is not much good anyway.  

Does anyone here have experience with this Armor Firewall in combination
with Vista, or do you have any suggestions or comments for me?  I understand
that two different firewalls sometimes don't play well together, but I did
not have the opportunity to turn Norton off before I had the problem.  The
Armor installation software shut down the computer after finishing up and
before I turned off Norton, and that's when I ran into the shutdown
problems.  I don't know if the Armor/Norton issue is what caused my problem
or not.

I'm thinking about trying again.  Just what procedure should I use to safely
get on the internet, download and install Armor, and meanwhile turn off
Norton.  I'm afraid to turn Norton off before going on the internet.  I
would very much like to use Armor if I can.  Note, in the past with XP I
always used Zone Alarm, but it was rated "very poor" in the same study.  

If anyone is using Armor Firewall please let me know how you like it,
especially if you have Vista.  

Meanwhile, I also found a couple free virus scanners that I am thinking
about using in conjunction with my AVG Free.  These are Avast and Avira.  I
know one antivirus won't find everything, so I would like to have at least
two.  Any comments about Avast and Avira?

Thanks,
Mike  
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