Sygate, Kerio, or ZoneAlarm Pro?

I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
the internet via a dial-up connection.

I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.

What are your suggestions?

Thanks,

Steve

Steve Sr.

Steve Sr. <> wrote in
news::

> I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
> the internet via a dial-up connection.
>
> I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
> what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
> all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
> good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.
>
> What are your suggestions?
>


I prefer Kerio. It's highly configurable, runs almost invisibly, and is
free. BTW, avoid Kerio 4. It's buggy. Kerio 2.1.5 is still available,
though well hidden:

http://www.kerio.com/dwn/kpf/

I've read so many horror stories about Zone Alarm that I wouldn't recommend
it to anyone. It's bloated, a resource hog, has major uninstall issues, and
may conflict with other installed software.

Sygate, I know little about.

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:33:54 -0500, Steve Sr. <>
wrote:

>I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
>the internet via a dial-up connection.
>
>I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
>what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
>all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
>good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.
>
>What are your suggestions?

The last time I used ZoneAlarm, I found it to be resource intensive,
and annoying.

Since then, I've been using Kerio on my windows box, and I think it's
pretty good. It's not perfect, but better than anything else (in
regards to personal firewalls for windows).

It also saved me from a bit of trouble on the weekend, when I ran foul
of .hta and a dodgy website.

Dazz

>Thanks,
>
>Steve

"donutbandit" <> wrote in message
news:bv7vmp$70t$...
> I prefer Kerio. It's highly configurable, runs almost invisibly, and is
> free. BTW, avoid Kerio 4. It's buggy. Kerio 2.1.5 is still available,
> though well hidden:

How is it buggy? Are you referring to all the annoying popups? Are they
planning a patch soon?

Steve Sr. wrote:
> I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
> the internet via a dial-up connection.
>
> I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
> what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
> all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
> good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.
>
> What are your suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
I have used most of the free PFs and was very happy with Sygate but I have
settled on Outpost from www.agnitum.com Highly configurable with extra
plugins if you wish to use them.
Of the lot ZA is the only one that I would warn about - it can be extremely
difficult to do a clean uninstall if you don't like it.
Your best bet is to try each for about a week in turn and then choose the
one YOU like best - Kerio/Tiny, Sygate, Outpost.
Seán

I used to use Agnitum Outpost which I liked a lot, but when I moved over to
Broadband I found problems in loading it at startup, something to do with
the firewall starting before the broadband connection had established
itself. I have now moved over to Kerio which again is very customisable and
like Outpost is not very memory hungry. I did install Zone Alarm but I
don't like the user interface and on the free version there is no display as
to what data programs are actually downloading. Sygate is also a good
program but I ditched that in favour of Outpost, I can't quite remember what
the reason was now though.

Regards

"Dazz" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:33:54 -0500, Steve Sr. <>
> wrote:
>
> >I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
> >the internet via a dial-up connection.
> >
> >I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
> >what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
> >all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
> >good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.
> >
> >What are your suggestions?
>
> The last time I used ZoneAlarm, I found it to be resource intensive,
> and annoying.
>
> Since then, I've been using Kerio on my windows box, and I think it's
> pretty good. It's not perfect, but better than anything else (in
> regards to personal firewalls for windows).
>
> It also saved me from a bit of trouble on the weekend, when I ran foul
> of .hta and a dodgy website.
>
> Dazz
>
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Steve
>

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:33:47 -0000, "ClareOldie"
<> wrote:
>
>
>Steve Sr. wrote:
>> I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
>> the internet via a dial-up connection.
>>
>> I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
>> what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
>> all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
>> good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.
>>
>> What are your suggestions?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Steve
>I have used most of the free PFs and was very happy with Sygate but I have
>settled on Outpost from www.agnitum.com Highly configurable with extra
>plugins if you wish to use them.
>Of the lot ZA is the only one that I would warn about - it can be extremely
>difficult to do a clean uninstall if you don't like it.
>Your best bet is to try each for about a week in turn and then choose the
>one YOU like best - Kerio/Tiny, Sygate, Outpost.
>Seán
>

Thanks everyone for your advice. It appears that there are no clear
cut winners in the personal firewall space. I was originally attracted
to ZA from earlier reports from Steve Gibson's site. It would appear
that ZA has fallen behind and has picked up some bad characteristics.

I will probably take Sean's advice and try the remaining candidates
and then make a choice.

Steve

Steve Sr. wrote:
> I am looking for a firewall to add to a Win2K box that's exposed to
> the internet via a dial-up connection.
>
> I hate to be starting a firewall "war" but am looking for advice on
> what is the best option. I have read both good and bad things about
> all of them. I was leaning towards ZAP but some folks say it is not as
> good as it used to be and may cause performance issues.
>
> What are your suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
I'm using one from Computer Associates. They are currently offering it
and the virus protection free for one year. Seems to work rather well.
Even picked up a virus infected email upon arrival and took care of it
seamlessly. The firewall I noticed resembles ZoneAlarm in many aspects,
but offers more options and configurability. Hasn't caused any problems
here so far.