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Should You Fire Your Firewall? An In-depth Look at Firewalls

Mar 10, 2004 9:12AM PST

There are no precise or reliable statistics on the amount of computer crimes; however, many sites which offer scanning tools to test your current security settings do report their findings. Currently, Shields UP!! Has tested 26,025,987 systems (or shields as they call it) with nearly four million names exposed and over three million directories exposed. Though most hackers who break into computers used them as zombies to exploit other networks, 12% of hacker attacks do cause significant damage.

This article focuses on firewall applications and how well they perform as far as securing your system. Four firewall programs were tested as well as two routers, and Windows XP built in firewall. In addition, we also wanted to see how exposed a system is without running any type of firewall. The four software firewall applications tested were:

Norton Personal Firewall 2004 - $44.98
Sygate Personal Firewall 5.5 - $47.95
ZoneAlarm 4 - Free
McAfee Personal Firewall Plus 2004 - $39.99

The two routers tested were the D-Link DI-604 priced at around $35.99 and the Cisco 831 SOHO which cost about $399.

Two types of test were conducted, inbound and outbound. This article also covers issues concerning usability, features and support for each of the software firewall applications tested.

http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=41&perpage=1&pagenum=1

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