Firewall Software

smatanovic

Hi Everyone: I am intereste din getting feedback from people who have used various firewall products for a home LAN. I am looking to install protective software to our LAN at home, and I am interested in any suggestions/recommendations that people may have.



Thanks,

SM

chych

If you use Mac OS X 10.2 there is a built in firewall under the "Sharing" system preferences... hey it's free...



If you have a router in front of your network they may have firewalls as well.

ghost_user_name

The sharing tab in the prefs is the bare minimum for configuring your firewall.



If you want a much more advanced front-end to the built-in firewall, get BrickHouse. BrickHouse owns. And it's free.



By the way, if you check its web site, you'll see that there are newer betas available than the one listed on VersionTracker and MacUpdate.



[ 10-14-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>

smatanovic

[quote]Originally posted by smatanovic:

<strong>Hi Everyone: I am intereste din getting feedback from people who have used various firewall products for a home LAN. I am looking to install protective software to our LAN at home, and I am interested in any suggestions/recommendations that people may have.



Thanks,

SM</strong><hr></blockquote>



I guess I should have specified, we are running OS 9.2 (at least for the next 6 months) so I would like info on products that run on OS 9.



Thanks,

SM

mrmister

Oh.



&lt;silence&gt;



How about upgrading to 10.2 and using BrickHouse?

the watchful babbler

<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

cubedude

Check your router. It might have a firewall built-in. If not, do as mrmister says.



Or, you can go a find a software firewall from Symantec or something.

burningwheel

wow didn't know about that. does it tell you if anyone has tried to access your computer?



there was a mac guy on tech tv and he said you should get a firewall by openDoor. he also recommends getting anti-virus becasue of potential Unix viruses

burningwheel

Brad do you use Brickhouse?

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by burningwheel:

<strong>there was a mac guy on tech tv and he said you should get a firewall by openDoor. he also recommends getting anti-virus becasue of potential Unix viruses</strong><hr></blockquote>openDoor? Never heard of it. It's not on VersionTracker or MacUpdate either...



Anti-virus seftware really is not very necessary on Mac OS X. Unix viruses (like Windows viruses) probably won't do piddle because (if they are binaries) they probably are not compiled for PPC or for Mac OS X. For a virus to affect a system, it has to be tailored specifically for it. To date there are no known Mac OS X viruses.



What do the anti-virus apps for OSX do then? They mostly scan your files for *Windows* viruses so you don't accidentally give a Windows user a virus by sharing your files. That and they reinforce your sense of security.



Yes, I use and still recommend BrickHouse.

telomar

I still favour Intego's NetBarrier myself.

crawlingparanoia

Another vote for NetBarrier.

burningwheel

[quote]Originally posted by Brad:

<strong>openDoor? Never heard of it. It's not on VersionTracker or MacUpdate either...



</strong><hr></blockquote>





opendoor.com. it costs $50, i had a demo once for OpenDoor on my old computer runninh 8.6. i liked it. i bought NetBarrier but didn't like it, difficult to set up



[ 01-14-2003: Message edited by: burningwheel ]</p>

kcmac

I just use what came with OS X. Simple. Basic.

telomar

[quote]Originally posted by burningwheel:

<strong>



i bought NetBarrier but didn't like it, difficult to set up

</strong><hr></blockquote>



Are you talking about the same NetBarrier as everybody else? It's remarkebly easy to set up. Just pick a default option if you really can't understand it.



If you want to tailor it further you can just check the logs and adjust rules accordingly. It's amazingly flexible and easy to use. Also has data transfer monitoring that can be very helpful if you're stuck in my position.