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General discussion

USING 2 FIREWALLS

Mar 14, 2004 3:37PM PST

is it a good idea to use 2 firewalls? zone alarm and sygate? which one is better?

Discussion is locked

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Re:USING 2 FIREWALLS
Mar 14, 2004 8:26PM PST

Using two firewalls is like using two surge protectors, it doesn't offer you any additional security unless you really know what you're doing.

As for which one's better, I have a pretty low opinion of both of those. Sygate tends to suck CPU cycles like crazy and can really screw with gaming, and Zone Alarm is the same way. Kerio's not too bad, but it can be a little slow getting to the configuration stuff... Outpost I'm reasonably impressed with. Light on resources, and it can do stateful inspections which would put it head and shoulders above the rest.

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Re:USING 2 FIREWALLS
Mar 14, 2004 10:44PM PST

Nope.

Use one or the other as they both provide the required protection you need. In short they will using system resources to do their jobs, so having two running isn't going to be better, it may cripple the system even as those resources could better be used elsewhere. You could try other firewalls, just google for demos or free versions to try out. I've settled for ZA(free) and it does the job. The Pro version is far more enhanced and that's true for those offering a basic firewall but a better "pro" version as an upgrade. If you're serious on protection it pays to get an enhanced level of firewall but in many cases the basic offering does what it intends to do, protect against 95% of the bad stuff out there. Its that remaining 5% that becomes a problem, so look for firewalls that offer continous updates to keep malware at bay.

good luck -----Willy