Do you really need a firewall?

[Righ]

Been using AVG's free a/v for about the last 2 years.  Never had a complaint with it.

I might install it at work if it keeps out complaints.

[Reg]

I've been using AVG for years too and the only problem I've had is having it get into the state where it made me reboot my machine every single time it updated. It was a bad temporary file and if I'd tracked it down and deleted it that would have solved the problem but it was easier just to uninstall and reinstall.

[apocrypha]

I've been using AVG for years too and the only problem I've had is having it get into the state where it made me reboot my machine every single time it updated. It was a bad temporary file and if I'd tracked it down and deleted it that would have solved the problem but it was easier just to uninstall and reinstall.

Hey that's happened to AVG on one of my machines. I just ignore it. "AVG needs to reboot. Reboot now?" Fuck off. Maybe I should bother to fix it... 

[Tale]

Old versions of ZoneAlarm sometimes had problems with torrent software, so I stopped using it a few years ago. Instead I use Sygate Personal Firewall which is quiet, lightweight freeware and does the same thing as ZoneAlarm. They've stopped updating Sygate, but that doesn't matter - it still performs the same allow/deny program permissions function as ZoneAlarm.

Behind NAT and using Firefox with Adblock Plus and NoScript (like a firewall for javascript), with a legal copy of F-Prot Antivirus (quiet, light, cheap and just better), I feel safe.

[SnakeCharmer]

Been using AVG's free a/v for about the last 2 years.  Never had a complaint with it.

I might install it at work if it keeps out complaints.

Works the way it should - as in it keeps out infections and you never know it's there.

[CharlieMopps]

my 2 cents: Software firewalls are worthless. Anyone competent enough to write a virus/malware/adware is going to get around a software firewall pretty easily. You're best defense is to not get infected. Install AVG, adaware, Spybot search and destroy, they are all free. Never use IE. Use firefox, always click "No" to popups. Assume "Software cracks" always have a virus, even if they test clean. You should be fine. Oh yea, if your friends start sending you mass emails, tell them to stop. It's all pretty basic stuff.

[Righ]

Software firewalls are worthless.

Technically speaking all firewalls are software. What people like to call "hardware firewalls" are simply specialist computers running firewall software - Nokia firewalls run a stripped down BSD OS called IPSO that supports Checkpoint firewall code; Cisco PIX is an application set running on a specialist kernel originally called Finesse, for example. Further, just because a firewall runs on a general purpose operating system that doesn't make it worthless. It is likely to make it more complex to set up though. Everybody connected to the Internet should at least have filter rules on their router. As for host-based firewalls, I like having them, particularly on laptop computers that are going to get connected to other peoples' networks. Competent malware writers cannot bypass them with the ease that you suggest.

[Tale]

Host-side/software firewalls are not worthless. They make it easy to deny internet access to all those programs and parts of Windows that love to phone home for no good reason.