Firewall program for Mac

mac man 020581mac man 020581
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I have been careful to run an antivirus program on my iMac, and keep it up to date; I use Norton AV 8. Since I use a dial up connection, I have assumed that I did not need a Firewall program. Do I need one? If I have to buy one I want to get Norton? Personal Firewall for Macintosh® 2.0, is that a good one? Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    composercomposer Posts: 212member
    [quote]Originally posted by Mac Man 020581:

    <strong>I have been careful to run an antivirus program on my iMac, and keep it up to date; I use Norton AV 8. Since I use a dial up connection, I have assumed that I did not need a Firewall program. Do I need one? If I have to buy one I want to get Norton? Personal Firewall for Macintosh® 2.0, is that a good one? Thanks.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Since I skipped the whole 10.0.x-10.1.5 thing, I'm not sure. I do know that 10.2 has a firewall BUILT-IN with extemely conservative security settings. Why not spend the dough on Jaguar instead and speed up that iMac of yours?
  • Reply 2 of 7
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    First of all, I would advise against using Norton AntiVirus. The Norton software hasn't exactly been the best model citizen for Mac OS X and is the source of many problems including some that may bring your system grinding to a halt in a kernel panic. Besides that, there are no viruses on Mac OS X to be worried about. Zero.



    Anyhow, Mac OS X has had a built-in firewall since its first release two years ago. It is just as solid as any of the commercial software firewalls you'll find. I would not recommend buying any 3rd party firewalls unless you are just completely paranoid.



    The firewall can be configured in any of three ways. In 10.2, you can toggle some very basic option from the System Preferences. Choose the Sharing pane and click the Firewall tab. There you can add and enable/disable certain ports. As I said, this is a very basic interface. The second way to configure the firewall is through the command line. This is only advisable for experts who are familiar with the "ipfw" command. The third and best option is to use a third-party tool to configure the firewall. My personal favorite is <a href="http://brianhill.dyndns.org/index.php3?topic_id=39"; target="_blank">BrickHouse</a>. It has oodles of options for advanced users and an "assistant" to guide beginners in their initial setups. Brian's site also has forums with a FAQ section and support sectio specifically for BrickHouse.



    edit: Oh, and Composer is right! Instead of spending your cash on that Norton junk, why don't you spend it on upgrading to 10.2?



    [ 12-02-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 7
    mac man 020581mac man 020581 Posts: 632member
    Is OS x 10.1.5's firewall configured to any degree? So I maybe don't brickhouse?
  • Reply 4 of 7
    noahjnoahj Posts: 4,503member
    [quote]Originally posted by Mac Man 020581:

    <strong>Is OS x 10.1.5's firewall configured to any degree? So I maybe don't brickhouse?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    No. Sorry.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    mac man 020581mac man 020581 Posts: 632member
    second question: do I really need to enable OS X's built-in firewall.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    By default, the firewall is disabled in Mac OS X.



    There's really no need to configure it unless you just want strict control over the available ports. Mac OS X doesn't leave any vulnerable ports hanging open like certain Windows installs sometimes do.



    [ 12-02-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 7 of 7
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    I have ALL services off. But what about all the other ports? This is why I turned the FireWall on. I'm surprised I wasn't hacked earlier! If I've been port scanned etc. over the past year, in Jaguar or 10.1.x, is there a log file for that?



    So I turned the FireWall on. Now I'm pretty much invincible with all services off, right?
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