Guest mike Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Thanks to those wha answered Steve Wilsons question (Incidentally. can anyone tell me why so many names in this ng appear as a jumble of symbols, although my tooltip sorts them into English?) The real question is - I've got 3 firewalls, one in an ADSL router, the Windows Firewall, and I'm using Comodo. The reason I like Comodo is it tells me if any prog is phoning home, and requires a permission. Can I turn off both the other two, or is another one preferable, or do I need more than one? I'd prefer to have just one running, as I used to before routers and Windows Firewalls, I never had a sniff of trouble with one of the several excellent freeware jobs. So can I use just one? If so. which? TIA mike
Guest R. McCarty Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls Most 3rd-Party Firewalls should automatically disable the internal Windows Firewall. The router actually has NAT and is usually only disabled by setting the access device to "Bridging Mode". You should check XP's Firewall status from it's control applet in Control Panel and disable, if Active. "mike" <mike@nosuch.co.uk> wrote in message news:Xns997577BAB96D5mikenosuchcouk@130.133.1.4... > Thanks to those wha answered Steve Wilsons question > > (Incidentally. can anyone tell me why so many names in this ng appear as a > jumble of symbols, although my tooltip sorts them into English?) > > The real question is - I've got 3 firewalls, one in an ADSL router, the > Windows Firewall, and I'm using Comodo. > > The reason I like Comodo is it tells me if any prog is phoning home, and > requires a permission. > > Can I turn off both the other two, or is another one preferable, or do I > need more than one? > > I'd prefer to have just one running, as I used to before routers and > Windows Firewalls, I never had a sniff of trouble with one of the several > excellent freeware jobs. > > So can I use just one? If so. which? > > TIA > > mike
Guest Bruce Chambers Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls mike wrote: > Thanks to those wha answered Steve Wilsons question > > (Incidentally. can anyone tell me why so many names in this ng appear as a > jumble of symbols, although my tooltip sorts them into English?) > > The real question is - I've got 3 firewalls, one in an ADSL router, the > Windows Firewall, and I'm using Comodo. > > The reason I like Comodo is it tells me if any prog is phoning home, and > requires a permission. > > Can I turn off both the other two, or is another one preferable, or do I > need more than one? > > I'd prefer to have just one running, as I used to before routers and > Windows Firewalls, I never had a sniff of trouble with one of the several > excellent freeware jobs. > > So can I use just one? If so. which? > > TIA > > mike You do need to have a firewall running, but there's no point in running more than one. My position is that running two or more software firewalls simultaneously is generally unnecessary and can _sometimes_ cause conflicts, potentially negating the protection of both. Even ig there is no conflict, having two firewalls running simultaneously is most certainly an unnecessary drain on system resources, without providing any additional benefit. As Comodo is the superior product, by far, I'd recommend that you disable the Windows firewall. If you use a router with NAT, it's still a very good idea to use a 3rd party software firewall. Like WinXP's built-in firewall, NAT-capable routers do nothing to protect the user from him/herself (or any "curious," over-confident teenagers in the home). Again -- and I cannot emphasize this enough -- almost all spyware and many Trojans and worms are downloaded and installed deliberately (albeit unknowingly) by the user. So a software firewall, such as Comodo, Sygate or ZoneAlarm, that can detect and warn the user of unauthorized out-going traffic is an important element of protecting one's privacy and security, alerting you to an unwanted malware application's activity. (Remember: Most antivirus applications do not even scan for or protect you from adware/spyware, because, after all, you've installed them yourself, so you must want them there, right?) I use both a router with NAT and Sygate Personal Firewall, even though I generally know better than to install scumware. When it comes to computer security and protecting my privacy, I prefer the old "belt and suspenders" approach. In the professional IT community, this is also known as a "layered defense." Basically, it comes down to never, ever "putting all of your eggs in one basket." -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls On 22 Jul 2007 10:46:12 GMT, mike <mike@nosuch.co.uk> wrote: > Thanks to those wha answered Steve Wilsons question > > (Incidentally. can anyone tell me why so many names in this ng appear as a > jumble of symbols, although my tooltip sorts them into English?) I'm not sure what you mean, but perhaps you are seeing names which were not written in the English character set. > The real question is - I've got 3 firewalls, one in an ADSL router, That's fine. > the > Windows Firewall, and I'm using Comodo. It is *not* good to run both. > The reason I like Comodo is it tells me if any prog is phoning home, and > requires a permission. > > Can I turn off both the other two, or is another one preferable, or do I > need more than one? > > I'd prefer to have just one running, as I used to before routers and > Windows Firewalls, I never had a sniff of trouble with one of the several > excellent freeware jobs. Leave the router alone. It doesn't hurt you in any way to keep it on. But do not run two software firewalls. You achieve no extra protection, you incur the extra overhead of running two firewalls, and you run the risk (probably small, but not zero) of conflicts between them. See http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/firewall.mspx which includes the following: "Q. Should I use both the built-in firewall and a software firewall from a different company on my Windows XP computer? "A. No. Running multiple software firewalls is unnecessary for typical home computers, home networking, and small-business networking scenarios. Using two firewalls on the same connection could cause issues with connectivity to the Internet or other unexpected behavior. One firewall, whether it is the Windows XP Internet Connection Firewall or a different software firewall, can provide substantial protection for your computer." If you like Comodo, use Comodo, and turn off the Windows firewall. -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest mike Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in news:8pu6a3tcjvb4hhajrlnjh1h733vbm8so4f@4ax.com: > One firewall, whether it is the Windows XP Internet Connection > Firewall or a different software firewall, can provide substantial > protection for your computer." > > If you like Comodo, use Comodo, and turn off the Windows firewall. > Thanks, Ken, Bruce and "R"; that's pretty clear mike
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls On 22 Jul 2007 17:27:16 GMT, mike <mike@nosuch.co.uk> wrote: > "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in > news:8pu6a3tcjvb4hhajrlnjh1h733vbm8so4f@4ax.com: > > > One firewall, whether it is the Windows XP Internet Connection > > Firewall or a different software firewall, can provide substantial > > protection for your computer." > > > > If you like Comodo, use Comodo, and turn off the Windows firewall. > > > > Thanks, Ken, Bruce and "R"; that's pretty clear You're welcome. Glad to help. -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest Bruce Chambers Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls mike wrote: > > > Thanks, Ken, Bruce and "R"; that's pretty clear > > mike You're welcome. -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
Guest XS11E Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls mike <mike@nosuch.co.uk> wrote: > (Incidentally. can anyone tell me why so many names in this ng > appear as a jumble of symbols, although my tooltip sorts them into > English?) Yes, you're using Xnews (and a VERY old, obsolete version at that, the current released version is 2006.08.24, pay no attention to the "test" designation, nobody knows why Luu Tran did that.) and it needs help in decoding some character sets. Mime-Proxy works well for that, http://www.lamaiziere.net/mp_pagen.html If you need any help in setting it up or with Xnews look for news.software.readers on your news server. -- XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html
Guest Plato Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Re: Firewalls mike wrote: > > The real question is - I've got 3 firewalls, one in an ADSL router, the > Windows Firewall, and I'm using Comodo. > > The reason I like Comodo is it tells me if any prog is phoning home, and > requires a permission. Well, if you have a software firewall that tells you if your pc in phoning home, then in theory, you dont need the windows firewall, expecially since you have a a router. I've been using NAT routers for years, but still have a software firewall that alerts me if an app wants to phone home. I'm still using and old, free version of zone alarm to alert me if an app wants to phone home. -- http://www.bootdisk.com/
Guest mike Posted July 23, 2007 Posted July 23, 2007 Re: Firewalls XS11E <xs11e@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in news:Xns99759616E2663xs11eyahoocom@127.0.0.1: > mike <mike@nosuch.co.uk> wrote: > >> (Incidentally. can anyone tell me why so many names in this ng >> appear as a jumble of symbols, although my tooltip sorts them into >> English?) > > Yes, you're using Xnews (and a VERY old, obsolete version at that, the > current released version is 2006.08.24, pay no attention to the "test" > designation, nobody knows why Luu Tran did that.) and it needs help in > decoding some character sets. Mime-Proxy works well for that, > > http://www.lamaiziere.net/mp_pagen.html > Thanks XS11e Sorry abouy the old version of Xnews, it must have snuck in when I changed to XP. Having updated, I can see no difference at all to the prog, which may tell you something about my competence in this area! I can see that the Utf character set is baffling Xnews, so that explains that, but it only happens on this ng, (I lurk around 5 or 6 others), so I wondered if hter's something different about it as its a microsoft.publicxx. Thanks for the Mime proxy reference, but it looks a bit severe for me; takes me back to my years failing to make linux work, and I haven't enough life left to continue _that_ project, so I'll carry on letting my tooltips do the work :) mike
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