Vista compatible 3rd party firewall now available
From the article: Firewall fire sale: Free ZoneAlarm makes it to Vista
The Vista version of ZoneAlarm, a two-way firewall that will continue to be given away, is the first from a major security vendor to apply Vista's Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) API, said Laura Yecies, the general manager of Check Point's consumer security line.
It enables an outbound firewall (The firewall in Vista also supports this, it just happens to be hidden in the Advanced Firewall MMC). I'm not a big fan of outbound firewalls as:
- The software is already on your machine. ( if(!PingServer()){Delete("*");} )
- It could probably send it through another enabled app (use the web browser, hide it in a ping packet)
Comments
- Anonymous
June 20, 2007
I think you missed the point with 3rd Party Firewalls. Vista's firewall is much better than previous incarnations however as many have stated, its outbound firewall filter is off by default. And as you mentioned, access to this is deeply embedded in the MMC console. For a power user this is not too much of an issue however configuring firewall rules is not for the faint of heart and I can see the uninitiated easily opening up a port that allows their system to become a malware propagator (provided they managed to get infected in the first place). I think the developers need to take a cue from the more experienced vendors out there and build in some sort of heuristic learning and guided learning system into the firewall so the power users can train their firewall application correctly (eliminating the need to manually edit the rules). Personally I don't trust a firewall that doesn't offer this feature however I am stuck for now, with the in-built firewall until the 3rd Party vendors release their Vista specific products. Fz