TSGL: Online Armor Personal Firewall

[Russell W. Coover]

Ron, 

If you reread my email (below), you will find the steps necessary to "turn
outgoing monitoring on". Basically, it involves running wf.msc, a program
which is on every Vista machine but is hidden. It will also allow the
machine to log every attempt to access it from outside your network. It is
at least as good as Zone Alarms attempt to run on Vista ... perhaps better.

Russ Coover

-----Original Message-----
From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
Behalf Of rbrunton at accesscable.net
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 3:51 AM
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
Subject: Re: TSGL: Online Armor Personal Firewall

Actually the Vista firewall, unlike the XP version, will monitor outgoing
traffic, but that is turned off by default. I don't recall the steps for
turning outgoing monitoring on, only that it is a bit involved. When I get
back home (I'm in a hotel room right now) I'll see if I can find those
details. 

My XP systems all use ZoneAlarm, but I have not been able to make ZoneAlarm
and Vista play nicely together, despite the claim by ZoneAlarm that it's now
Vista compatible. I also have a hardware router/firewall for my home
network. Everything I've read indicates the hardware version trumps any
software firewall rather handily and there are quite a few writers who think
adding a software firewall to a system with a hardware one is just a waste
of system resources. I had purchased ZoneAlarm Pro for my XP system, but ZA
has not released a Vista friendly version of ZA Pro.

HTH
Ron

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell W. Coover" <coover at fastmail.fm>
Date: Monday, December 17, 2007 9:53 pm
Subject: Re: TSGL: Online Armor Personal Firewall

> 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 
> Firewallwhich 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 
> outgoinginternet 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 
> attemptsfrom 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 
> combinationwith 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 
> thinkingabout 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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