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I just bought my first laptop. It runs Vista, and I need a software firewall to protect both its Ethernet and wifi connections.

I use the free Comodo Personal Firewall on my desktop, but I read that wifi protection requires upgrading to the commercial version.

Before I shell out the money, I'd like to know 1. what the recommended firewalls are for Vista 2. among those, are there free/open-source options?

Thank you.

OverTheRainbow
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5 Answers5

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Just use the firewall Microsoft is shipping. Windows firewall is really ok.

ThorstenS
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Windows Firewall and Windows Defender (wich is builtin) is fine.

pauska
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Until Windows included its own built in I used to use Zonealarm, which handles both incoming and outgoing connections. And its free as well.

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Do you have any specific requirements. Using the baked-in vista one has the advantage of letting windows installer open ports when a vista aware application requires them.

Jim B
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If you want fine-grained control you could use ipsec? start->run->secpol.msc, then go to the bottom one in the list (IP Security Policies). I've managed to lock myself out of remote machines regularly with that one, so I guess that should suffice? ;-)

Erik van Brakel
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