Windows 8 Firewall - How Good Is It?

I've only been using Windows 8/64 for about a month now and I love it. But
I moved to this directly from Windows XP Home, on which I ran Sunbelt
Personal Firewall because I liked the way it asked for my confirmation on
every attempt a program made to communicate with the outside world, and it
warned me of incoming traffic, too. I had used Kerio Personal Firewall
and Tiny Personal Firewall. I think Kerio got it from Tiny and Sunbelt
got it from Kerio. Now it's no longer being developed.

Anyway, I've seen a few pop-ups from the default Windows 8 firewall, like
when I used mIRC for the first time. But installing internet-capable
programs and getting no confirmation popups makes me nervous. It makes me
feel like I don't really have a firewall. That said, sometimes the popups
in the old third-party firewalls I've used could be a little confusing
when I hadn't initiated any action, and some legitimate background program
started trying to communicate on the internet. One time I refused
communication and immediately got a blue screen in WinXP.

So really, how protective is the default Windows 8 firewall? Right now,
my system is running smooth with no problems. I've read complaints from
some people who installed a third-party firewall and they immediately
started having problems.

I basically don't want important files floating through a porous firewall,
like my MS Money files, or my dream journals, or anything else, for that
matter.

Is anybody here concerned about the effectiveness of the Windows 8
firewall? Did you install a third-party one?

Thanks,
Damaeus

Damaeus wrote:
I've only been using Windows 8/64 for about a month now and I love it. But
I moved to this directly from Windows XP Home, on which I ran Sunbelt
Personal Firewall because I liked the way it asked for my confirmation on
every attempt a program made to communicate with the outside world, and it
warned me of incoming traffic, too. I had used Kerio Personal Firewall
and Tiny Personal Firewall. I think Kerio got it from Tiny and Sunbelt
got it from Kerio. Now it's no longer being developed.

Anyway, I've seen a few pop-ups from the default Windows 8 firewall, like
when I used mIRC for the first time. But installing internet-capable
programs and getting no confirmation popups makes me nervous. It makes me
feel like I don't really have a firewall. That said, sometimes the popups
in the old third-party firewalls I've used could be a little confusing
when I hadn't initiated any action, and some legitimate background program
started trying to communicate on the internet. One time I refused
communication and immediately got a blue screen in WinXP.

So really, how protective is the default Windows 8 firewall? Right now,
my system is running smooth with no problems. I've read complaints from
some people who installed a third-party firewall and they immediately
started having problems.

I basically don't want important files floating through a porous firewall,
like my MS Money files, or my dream journals, or anything else, for that
matter.

Is anybody here concerned about the effectiveness of the Windows 8
firewall? Did you install a third-party one?

Thanks,
Damaeus

Maybe you could use an add-on like this, for the missing functionality ?

http://www.howtogeek.com/113641/how-...g-connections/

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
Damaeus wrote:
I've only been using Windows 8/64 for about a month now and I love it.
But
I moved to this directly from Windows XP Home, on which I ran Sunbelt
Personal Firewall because I liked the way it asked for my confirmation on
every attempt a program made to communicate with the outside world, and
it
warned me of incoming traffic, too. I had used Kerio Personal Firewall
and Tiny Personal Firewall. I think Kerio got it from Tiny and Sunbelt
got it from Kerio. Now it's no longer being developed.

Anyway, I've seen a few pop-ups from the default Windows 8 firewall, like
when I used mIRC for the first time. But installing internet-capable
programs and getting no confirmation popups makes me nervous. It makes
me
feel like I don't really have a firewall. That said, sometimes the
popups
in the old third-party firewalls I've used could be a little confusing
when I hadn't initiated any action, and some legitimate background
program
started trying to communicate on the internet. One time I refused
communication and immediately got a blue screen in WinXP.

So really, how protective is the default Windows 8 firewall? Right now,
my system is running smooth with no problems. I've read complaints from
some people who installed a third-party firewall and they immediately
started having problems.

I basically don't want important files floating through a porous
firewall,
like my MS Money files, or my dream journals, or anything else, for that
matter.

Is anybody here concerned about the effectiveness of the Windows 8
firewall? Did you install a third-party one?

Thanks,
Damaeus

Maybe you could use an add-on like this, for the missing functionality ?

http://www.howtogeek.com/113641/how-...g-connections/

Paul

Unfortunately, for Win8:

"Important: WFN is not fully compatible with Windows 8 as of now. The next
version will be. Thank you for being patient..."

It does sound like a good add-on, though. Reminds me of Zone Alarm when it
was good :-)
--
SC Tom

snip

fortunately, for Win8:

"Important: WFN is not fully compatible with Windows 8 as of now. The
next version will be. Thank you for being patient..."

It does sound like a good add-on, though. Reminds me of Zone Alarm when
it was good :-)

damn right it's not fully compatible, it ****ed my PC up (I use win8 64
bit) long story, but I won't be using it again

In news:alt.comp.os.windows-8, usenetopian
posted on Fri, 10 May 2013 21:46:19 -0400 the following:

fortunately, for Win8:

"Important: WFN is not fully compatible with Windows 8 as of now. The
next version will be. Thank you for being patient..."

It does sound like a good add-on, though. Reminds me of Zone Alarm when
it was good :-)

damn right it's not fully compatible, it ****ed my PC up (I use win8 64
bit) long story, but I won't be using it again

Yes, and that's exactly what I want to avoid ... ****ing up my PC. It's
running smooth and stable now and I want to keep it that way.

Damaeus

On 5/12/2013 7:59 PM, Damaeus wrote:
In news:alt.comp.os.windows-8, usenetopian
posted on Fri, 10 May 2013 21:46:19 -0400 the following:

fortunately, for Win8:

"Important: WFN is not fully compatible with Windows 8 as of now. The
next version will be. Thank you for being patient..."

It does sound like a good add-on, though. Reminds me of Zone Alarm when
it was good :-)

damn right it's not fully compatible, it ****ed my PC up (I use win8 64
bit) long story, but I won't be using it again

Yes, and that's exactly what I want to avoid ... ****ing up my PC. It's
running smooth and stable now and I want to keep it that way.

Damaeus


now using Comodo firewall (not the suite, just the firewall) stellar
performance and security, and free!

Speaking of firewalls, what do you think of this article?

http://www.howtogeek.com/165203/why-you-dont-need-to-install-a-third-party-firewall-and-when-you-do/

On 06/12/2013 08:58 AM, Juan Wei wrote:
Speaking of firewalls, what do you think of this article?

http://www.howtogeek.com/165203/why-you-dont-need-to-install-a-third-party-firewall-and-when-you-do/


Hi Juan,

Seems well done to me. The only thing I'd add about using a third
party firewall, like Kaspersky's, is that you add a degree of safety
by what we call "security by obscurity". The bad guys tend to go
after what is used the most.

"security by obscurity" is why I say to limit your Windows machines
to only those you are forced to use.

-T

Damaeus posted this
via :

I've only been using Windows 8/64 for about a month now and I love it.
But I moved to this directly from Windows XP Home, on which I ran
Sunbelt Personal Firewall because I liked the way it asked for my
confirmation on every attempt a program made to communicate with the
outside world, and it warned me of incoming traffic, too. I had used
Kerio Personal Firewall and Tiny Personal Firewall. I think Kerio got
it from Tiny and Sunbelt got it from Kerio. Now it's no longer being
developed.

Anyway, I've seen a few pop-ups from the default Windows 8 firewall,
like when I used mIRC for the first time. But installing
internet-capable programs and getting no confirmation popups makes me
nervous. It makes me feel like I don't really have a firewall. That
said, sometimes the popups in the old third-party firewalls I've used
could be a little confusing when I hadn't initiated any action, and some
legitimate background program started trying to communicate on the
internet. One time I refused communication and immediately got a blue
screen in WinXP.

So really, how protective is the default Windows 8 firewall? Right now,
my system is running smooth with no problems. I've read complaints from
some people who installed a third-party firewall and they immediately
started having problems.

I basically don't want important files floating through a porous
firewall, like my MS Money files, or my dream journals, or anything
else, for that matter.

Is anybody here concerned about the effectiveness of the Windows 8
firewall? Did you install a third-party one?

Thanks,
Damaeus


The people you should be worried about regarding "firewalls" is your ISP
and the "trusted" programs of your OS along with the ones you have
installed... to wit, with the onset of ".NET" programming tools, more and
more "developers" are turning to "grey-area" exploits to "market" their
wares - in collusion with their "partners". Your ISP is likely falling for
the marketing paradigm of tracking your [Internet] movements and then
targeting you with both spam of strange origin with dubious addressee and
certain pop-ups and redirects... Google aready tries to direct you efforts
using a regional server reference system. Of course, your best defense
against that is clearing your cookies with a good cache cleaner; however,
the exploiteers are getting more and more sophisticated within an
enviornment void of meaningful regulation...

All that being said [and arguable as "conspiracy theory" by the proponents
of the misbehaviors and their sycophants], the best protection you can have
from both incoming probes and unwanted outgoing connections is a 3rd-Party
software firewall combined with the NAT protection of a hardware firewall
as is standard in a good router.

Of course, the "best" software firewall with poor settings/rules does not
completely solve the problems... The better firewalls harbor no hidden
agenda or independent marking motivations towards their users....


--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^; and noooooo....
that is NOT a Tomahawk armed Predator drone in my pocket;
but, I'm not particularly "happy" to see you either.