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security question

security question

Postby imintheloserssquare » Wed May 10, 2006 6:02 am

im connected to the internet thru a router..i was having trouble using programs because of the built in firewall so i disabled it and made it a DMZ zone. I currently have norton 2006 installed with a firewall will i be more safe with the norton firewall or the router firewall?

even though i used port forwarding for the programs i still had trouble connecting and using them.
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Postby NT50 » Wed May 10, 2006 1:44 pm

DMZ is bad....

Norton is worse.....

You will be safer with DMZ disabled and using the routers firewall. Norton is not trust worthy at all.
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Postby imnuts » Wed May 10, 2006 9:08 pm

I'm going to go with NT50 with this one. The firewall on the router is probably going to be much more secure than the firewall that Norton has, plus the Norton firewall likely will remove other stuff, like pictures, from webpages even if they aren't adds. I've also seen Norton's firewall prevent users from accessing the internet and prevented their computer from connecting to wireless. Overall, I would say that you would be better off finding out all of the ports that the program needs and forwarding them through the router. The only thing I'm wondering is what programs are you using that aren't working properly as the only time you need to open ports is if the program needs to accept incoming connections.
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Postby SCgone » Wed May 10, 2006 9:16 pm

You're talking apples and oranges here. The router is protecting you by a process known as Network Address Translation or NAT for short. Norton is protecting you because it is filtering your outbound connections and alerting you to anything nasty or otherwise that may be trying to phone home.
While you may feel protected with just the router, if you're going to go that far, then you should go the full 100% and protect your outbound connections also with a software firewall. I hate Norton, but if that's all I had then I'd use it. Another route you could take would be the free version of Zone Alarm which would probably use a lot less resources than Norton.
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Postby NT50 » Thu May 11, 2006 1:50 am

I like my firewall the best. The OFF button :)

Here is the way II look at it. It does NOT matter if you have a software firewall also. If you go to an internet site that has "bad" coding in the background...... you are making a call to that site for the information that it has. You are the one that says..... send me the information from your internet site.

Now if you have a software firewall and you are doing "nothing" then it shoudl stop traffic.

Simple... software firewalls are usless IMHO. The power off is the best firewall offered.
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Postby SCgone » Thu May 11, 2006 3:05 am

NT50 wrote:I like my firewall the best. The OFF button :)

Here is the way II look at it. It does NOT matter if you have a software firewall also. If you go to an internet site that has "bad" coding in the background...... you are making a call to that site for the information that it has. You are the one that says..... send me the information from your internet site.

Now if you have a software firewall and you are doing "nothing" then it shoudl stop traffic.

Simple... software firewalls are usless IMHO. The power off is the best firewall offered.


You must stay awful busy monitoring all the ports then, because you don't know what's sending out information. By that analysis you shouldn't be running an antivirus either. Software firewalls are far from useless.
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Postby NT50 » Thu May 11, 2006 3:22 am

Bell1 wrote:
NT50 wrote:I like my firewall the best. The OFF button :)

Here is the way II look at it. It does NOT matter if you have a software firewall also. If you go to an internet site that has "bad" coding in the background...... you are making a call to that site for the information that it has. You are the one that says..... send me the information from your internet site.

Now if you have a software firewall and you are doing "nothing" then it shoudl stop traffic.

Simple... software firewalls are usless IMHO. The power off is the best firewall offered.


You must stay awful busy monitoring all the ports then, because you don't know what's sending out information. By that analysis you shouldn't be running an antivirus either. Software firewalls are far from useless.


lololol..... Your right.... I don't speed a hugh amount of time on the net liek some do and some probably need some type of software firewall. And when I'm on here lately I'm on my Mac iBook.
Anyway... Some shoudl use the software firewall. Me I push my power button :)
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Postby j0k3rk1ll3r » Wed May 31, 2006 3:28 am

I find that Panda Titanuim 2k6 AntiVirus+Antispybot has a good firewall and everything else, except for my issue with watching a streamin video IE and firefox!. it gets annoying, anyone else have an issue with firefox crashing???
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Postby augie » Wed May 31, 2006 5:17 am

NT50 wrote:Anyway... Some shoudl use the software firewall. Me I push my power button :)


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Postby jbullard » Wed May 31, 2006 6:21 am

I agree with Bell. Firewalls are not useless as they have saved my arse lots of times. The biggest thing that I can say is to get some type of firewall. I used Zone Alarm for a while, but ended up grabbing NOD32 with Norton Anti-Virus Corporate Edition 9. Very secure and I never worry about viruses. I have SpyHunter with Enigma Popup blocker installed which tracks spyware, adware, and malware. So, in the end, the more ways you protect yourself, the less work you have to do.

The router firewalls are pretty secure, but are even more secure when backed up by a software firewall.

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