Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

FIREWALL

Oct 7, 2015 7:09AM PDT

Have a home computer with Windows 7. Am looking for a firewall that will give complete control of i/o activity but either doesn't monitor/ control internal activity or has separate program for this. I don't need a suite of other features. Suggestions? Too many firewalls restrict internal activity as well as access to the internet.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
I read this and wonder.
Oct 7, 2015 7:54AM PDT

All the firewalls I've used allow one to configure as needed. You seem to be wanting a firewall pre-configured to your specs. That may be rough to find.

And almost all firewalls have a firewall service (that's the part of the app that does the firewall) and another app to present the GUI. You seem to not want it to be in 2 parts? Why is that?

- Collapse -
Disappointment
Oct 7, 2015 7:55PM PDT

Thank you for your reply. You seem to be telling me that if I post a guard at my front door for security, I must put up with his involvement in everything else going on in the house. Depressing. I was looking for a guard service that would understand that it was for security at the front door only. I hope I've misinterpreted your response.

- Collapse -
I read your specs
Oct 8, 2015 7:04AM PDT

And thought about what you wanted. To me it sounded as I wrote above. That you wanted the firewall to arrive preconfigured and not to be in 2 parts like most are.

I took a look and all install as a service then a second part to handle configuration via a GUI.

Let's say you think there is a market for a firewall that arrives as you wish and not in 2 parts. You could tackle changing an open source firewall to do exactly as you wish?

As to the guard, I looked again and with almost all firewalls you have to configure them to ignore internal traffic. This sounds unacceptable to you. That is you want to want it to arrive pre-configured.

- Collapse -
Firewall
Oct 8, 2015 9:53AM PDT

Thanks again.