commodo firewall

[MrRiplEy[H]]

A personal firewall does two things, it protects you from unsolicited traffic attack services and taking down your system, and locks down outbound connections.

Most AV programs lock down the aspects of inbound attack crash protection you need. If they don't then you are investing in crap AV and need to upgrade.

Windows firewall is completely useless, malware drills through no problems (there are many tests showing this - just google firewall leak tests). Some personal firewall apps are much better, but at the end of the day they still leak and require more management and monitoring than is worthwhile. You are better of with good AV that includes good behavioral analysis (locking down stuff from run in the temp directory, outbound smtp, irc etc).

Semp: I work in the IT security field at enterprise and govt level.

Heh, best is not to use windows, period. Only boot up windows to play games.

[Vulcan]

but if we have a good av does it hurt to have a firewall?  after all I am not worried about those high level threats,  I am pretty sure they can bypass 99% of the people here, but run of the mill threats that a decent firewall will stop.


semp

It won't hurt, but the $$$ you invest in adding that personal firewall should be focussed on the best AV, or even a really good hardware firewall. The practical advantages of personal firewall software have really been mitigated by decent AV over the years.