Free, low resource firewall

[sj33]

I'm trying to streamline the amount of crap I have here at uni, which means ditching the router since I only have my laptop anyway. Howevr, my router obviously doubles up as a firewall of sorts.

Can anyone recommend a good, free, and especially low resource firewall?

[briareos_kerensky]

Comodo. A friend of mine uses it and he's happy; I've been using Outpost for more than a year, it doesnìt require a huge amount of resources (runs fine of a AthlonXP 3000+) but not free.

[Matt]

I didn't like Comodo when I tried it recently. It wanted to block DLLs and all sorts. OK if you're technical, but still, I want something simple to use.

I've been using Kerio for years. Had to remove it the other month as I reached the rule limit (lol), so thought I'd change rather than delete what was no longer applicable. After trying several highly recommended firewalls, I returned to Kerio

And just to be more awkward, I don't like the later versions of Kerio at all! I use version 2.1.5. Subsequent versions lost the feel I enjoyed. Powerful yet simple to use, doesn't bog you down with warnings, and lets me apply whatever settings to whatever I want - ports, IP range, program, TCP/UDP, send or receive. If you Google around you can locate the older versions. The version I have is definitely free, I don't know about the current versions.

[kernow]

*jokingly mentions IPtables*

[sj33]

Out of curiosity, would the Windows Firewall suffice for a person like me who knows what they are doing? The only reason I have a router at all anymore is for the firewall capability.

[kernow]

I'd imagine your connection is heavily firewalled elsewhere anyway, so probably.

[sj33]

I'm actually more concerned about people inside the university network tbh!

[Hohum]

Windows Firewall is perfectly alright, just that by default it only blocks incoming connections. You can change this behaviour in the control panel, mind (although I've never felt the need to as I'm pretty careful about what goes on my PC).