Hardware firewall for dialup

[isup]

Ordered Norton Internet security 2005. Can my dial-up connection use a hardware firewall or is it for high speed only? Also where can I find info about how to set all ports to stealth mode?

-i

[zepper]

Most hardware firewalls (usually part of a router) require either a LAN or USB connection to the modem. Since most PC users have internal dial-up modems, then that won't work. Use a software firewall for dialup.
. Re. Norton IS - you have my sympathies. It is the most resource hungry and intrusive stuff you can use. Making up your own suite is a far better idea. I hope you either didn't break the seal if retail or bought it OEM for cheap. Current recommendations are:

Kaspersky or TrendMicro's PC-Cillin for AV (annual sub.) You can keep several AV softwares installed as long as you use the real-time features of only one. And there are also the online AV checkers that you can use for backup from TrendMicro, Symantec, Panda et al. It looks like the combo of Kaspersky and NOD32 would be the most thorough, but Kaspersky alone is darn good ( however, I've heard that their tech support can be frustrating) - see http://www.AV-Comparatives.org for some good analysis of AV SW.

Sygate personal firewall or ZoneAlarm Personal (free) - I prefer Sygate as it isn't as intrusive or as hard to remove as ZA.

Spybot + Adaware + M$ beta anti spyware (all free, at least for now) - run them in SafeMode for best performance. I use all three but use the real-time features of only one.

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) - does as its name implies. Cleans the crap that accumulates on your hard drive from Internet activity, etc. It helps if you have a fairly good idea of how things should be before using the more advanced features of CCleaner as it's not hard to get rid of something you might need.

I download most of my security tools from or via http://www.MajorGeeks.com .

.bh.

[isup]

Thanks for your helpful comments. Got interested in security because of frequent failures of internet access via internet explorer. Read many reviews of security softwares and am aware of objections to NIS. However Norton and PC-cillin seem to be the top two choices among the reviewers. Took the risk and chose Norton because of its age in the market and it's always a strong contender. Found these two dial-up applications;

US Robotics 8000a02 supports external serial modems,
SMC-Barricade 8004V2 supports a serial modem

Also read that I can set stealth mode on Norton 2005.

Have Sygate and Ad-Aware but was still having problems with maintaining internet explorer connection. When removed registry errors with Ad-Aware they returned after surfacing a short while. That's what led me to seeking another firewall application. One of the problems was that internet explorer security setting was being changed from Medium to Custom when I surf on the net and I have to change it back to Medium. Another is that of getting Message Service popups telling me that vital information on my windows registry is corrupted and that I should visit www.fixmyreg.com to repair. At the same time I got a Sygate P F message saying that internet optimizer is trying to connect to internet-optimizer.com [65.39.191.5] and whether I should allow it to access network. I denied access and did not go to the registry repair site.
Downloaded Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) from Microsoft and the problem has gone at least for now. However yahoo can't ascept my e-mail passwords.
Appreciate that very good link.
Hope to get ADSL in the near future and will add a hardware firewall as well.
NIS 2005 was shipped to me today.

-i

[bombledmonk]

I would also recommend against using Norton. I have been fixing computers on the side for quite a while now and I can honestly say that at least a third of my software related problems come from Symantec applications. They just don't end up playing nicely with a lot of computers, bloat them up and bog them down.

Using Firfox/Opera, Avast!, Spybot, Adaware, Spyware Blaster, MS Antispyware, and Zone Alarm will keep your computer clean. I've been surfing about 5 months on this install of Win2k and after the initial scan I have yet to get 1 virus or spyware app on my computer. And there have been a total of 23 "suspicious" cookies removed from my computer. Compare that with the 500+ critical objects that I get on the majority of my service calls(many with norton) and those numbers speak for themselves. It is not in your best interest to rely on one company to alleviate your security concerns as there are just about always more specialized companies that are better at what they do.

I'd recommend taking a look at this as I have found it a helpful link to give out....
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best..._utilities.htm

[isup]

BM I appreciate that article. Very valuable info. I found that the following file is changing my IE security setting from Medium to Custom. MS AntiSpyware is showing a popup when this change is about to occur and allows me to prevent the change.

file:

C:\WNNT\System32\index.html


This file brings up a Yahoo!GeoGeocities webpage from time to time.

I first saw it while installing either MS Office 2000 or windows 2000 SP2. there was a firewall alert at the time and I had denied access. Maybe this is preventing yahoo mail from ascepting my passwords. Wondering if it is safe to delete index.html from the System32 folder.

-i

[bombledmonk]

Have you tried clearing you cookies? Yahoo was not accepting user name or password last week so I cleared my cookies and fixed it right up.

[isup]

How do I delete cookies, is it Internet Options/General/Temporary internet files, and Delete Cookies tab?

-i

[bombledmonk]

correct

[RobRich]

Most people at the consumer level tend to think a hardware firewall provides some type of mystical protection that is significantly better than a software firewall product. However, one must also remember the hardware firewall is nothing more than a standalone system running a software firewall.

The real protection with a hardware firewall solution is the embedded operating system is generally of a proprietary type, meaning exploitation is not widespread as for Windows or Linux.

Anyway, most dialup connections are established with dynamic IP addresses. Most crackers are not interesed in scanning dialup netblocks due to the high latency of the connections and the ever changing IP addresses, thus you are afforded some additional protection right there.

It has been a few years since I have published a professional software firewall review, but Sygate Personal Firewall still remains at the top of my list. It works well out the box, and the free version if perfectly fine if you are not running any servers or need VPN connectivity.

Robert Richmond

[RicheemxX]

Rob's dead on on this one, however no matter what your protection level is if you already have a trojan/spyware/virus on your computer or you continue to dl suspicious files adding a hardware or software firewall won't help. A software firewall like zone alarm will filter most apps from obtaining a connection to the net however there are still some that will exploit your IE connections.

you need to completely remove all your malware/malicious programs and add some anti-virus protection before even worrying about a firewall.