You might remember that I wrote an article in late november called Beginners Guide to securing your pc. You might remember as well that I suggested that there was no need for a desktop firewall at all. And you might even remember that I got some pretty bad comments about my suggestion in the comments section.
I found an article from searchsecurity.com today entitled Security without firewalls: Sensible or silly which comes to a similar conclusion six months laters. I´am not saying I was the first to advocate systems without firewalls, or at least without desktop firewalls, but it seems I was definatly not the last one to catch this security concept.
I´d be interested to hear your opinion on the matter. Are you using a firewall ? If so what kind of firewall, build in (like windows xp firewall), desktop (like outpost) or even a hardware firewall ?
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I use Norton Firewall on my laptop and I got it only because I didn’t know about open-source software and couldn’t find a free good firewall. As soon as my Norton expires, I’m going to download a free firewall that I find somewhere.
On my other PC, I use ZoneAlarm. I’m going to switch soon because I heard bad things about it.
I don’t use a Windows Firewall because it seems like it doesn’t do much for some reason. I just don’t trust it.
I do use my routers firewall, but I haven’t used a software firewall since my dial-up days.
I haven’t used a firewall in a few years on my personal machines, nor have I put one on my parents’ machine (Windows XP). However, I think users who do not bother keeping up with the latest vulnerabilities and are do not know how to shut down all services but the ones they require (very few in my parents’ case, for example) should use a friendly one. Furthermore, none of my machines have any sensitive data on them (I use a bootable USB key for home banking) – IMO machines carrying sensitive data should be kept off the internet if possible.
I think that these days the main attack vectors are human based – droppers on malicious web sites, executables spread via mail/p2p, etc. If you instruct the user about safe web practices and set up the machine well I see no need for a firewall, which will only confuse them with more pop-ups – which only serve to encourage them to OK every notification that comes up.
I just keep my fingers crossed. So far it ain’t working.
i’m not using a PFW but i’m using my routers firewall.
if you know how to config your windows xp system (disabling unused services, netbios blah blah) (and use your pc with limited access and only use administrator privileges when needed) you are on the right way.
I agree with comment 3, I haven’t used a Firewall since I found out how much Norton is total crapware and removed it. If you alittle common sense and there is no need for one on your PC, it’s just a waste of resources and increases boot time.