McAfee Firewall

[Quiet Thunder]

Ok, I normally hate McAfee products, especially after dealing with their anti-virus, but, I can get a free download of their new firewall through my cable provider. So, basically I'm asking if anyone's used it, to determine weither or not it's worth the download and save to cd. I'm already using Norton's firewall, and am pretty happy with it.

[confus-ed]

Pants! :rolleyes:

Try KerioPersonnal Firewall (http://www.kerio.com)

The interface is just like zonealarm was , its free to individual users ......

I like !

[Quiet Thunder]

I didn't really like ZoneAlarm, because I didn't feel like I had the control over the firewall I wanted. Zonealarm while nice for beginners, didn't have near the features I wanted. That's why I'm so happy with Norton. It's saved me from trojans several times, and it lets me customize my preferences for websites individually. I can allow some cookies, but not others. I can allow Java or ActiveX on some sites, but not others, ect...

[Akuma]

Personally, I really didn't care for the McAfee Firewall. I used it for a little while and had enough. I would have to say that if you didn't like ZoneAlarm, you won't like the Mcafee firewall either. Not to mention the system resources that it eats up in the background. :mad:

[Stalemate]

Since it came with my antivirus, I've just installed it now for the first time.

I figure since I paid for it...

I'll post again once I've fiddled with it a bit.

[Garak]

Originally posted by confus-ed
Pants! :rolleyes:

Try KerioPersonnal Firewall (http://www.kerio.com)

The interface is just like zonealarm was , its free to individual users ......

I like !

Decided I may aswell look at it again..

[Stalemate]

So I've installed it yesterday and I've only one glitch with it so far that I've posted in Tech-to-Tech.

It's extremely user-friendly to the point of being a pain about it, from what I can tell right now.

I'll print out the manual and see what might entice one to keep it instead of opting for a similar product (Kerio, ZoneAlarm).

[Stalemate]

Something they don't tell you in the manual that I deduced from the previous version FAQ was that ADSL/cable connections need to have a specific allowance taken into account.

In Advanced Settings, choose to modify the permissions bound to the adapter which gives you access to the Internet and make sure that on the Other Protocols tab "Allow protocols other than IP, ARP and RARP" is checked off.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/sboisvert/images/fwset.jpg

After playing around with the settings, I found out that this was keeping my ADSL DUN in WinXP from connecting to my ISP and could even cause the connection to be lost.

Since I did not find a specific entry for PPPOE, this was the next best thing. Maybe it will be included in a future update.

Apart from that, I like it. I'm not completely in love, but the fact that I can go down to the system level and have control on protocols passing through the NIC is great.

[Stalemate]

I'll be keeping this firewall for a while longer, as I have yet to find anything which would convince me to get rid of it. :p

A quick check with GRC/Steve Gibson's ShieldsUP! (https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) confirmed that my PC is undetectable through NetBIOS and that no ports are accessible:
... for all intents and purposes your computer doesn't exist to scanners on the Internet!

His LeakTest 1.1 application could not reach the GRC server either, meaning that unauthorized outbound traffic is also blocked.

[Stalemate]

I've encountered what I consider to be a major flaw in McAfee Firewall.

It doesn't involve its performance, but rather the fact that it appears to lose my custom configuations (filtered apps, NICs monitored) whenever I switch users or reboot the system.

I'm looking to see if there is a workaround I may have missed.

[Stalemate]

After many attempts and visits to the McAfee tech support site, I'm throwing in the towel.

It does the job, but the configuration issue just kills it for me.

I'm guessing that on a single-user workstation these problems wouldn't exist, but since I have 4 user accounts on this PC it's just not working out.

The customized settings keep having to be redone after each reboot and sometimes the firewall doesn't even detect the network adapters.

As of last night, I've installed Kerio instead.