Is windows 7 firewall good enough, compared to special programs ?

I'm using the Windows Firewall for a long time now, and I find it to be reasonably good. It can successfully block both incoming and outgoing connections, and used it to keep a strong control over internet activity.

Its most notable drawback is that it does NOT provide notification when it actually blocks an outgoing notification, not even as an option. It's important because while it still protects from possible malicious programs, it doesn't warns about that. It also difficults somewhat the proper configuration for legitimate programs. It also prevents it from "learning" from usage.
Another con could be that it's widely know how to add rules to it though the registry, which makes it vulnerable to being tampered by 3rd party programs if you're not aware of it.

Anyway, with Windows or any firewall, the most important aspect of a firewall is what rules do you put on it and its configuration. Do not stay with its defaults, as they provide little to no protection, but once properly setup is made, it can be quite good.

Personally I do not use the built-in Windows firewall because there isn't much control for my applications. (I use Comodo firewall / Emsisoft Online Armor / Outpost Firewall Pro). Applications today have the tendency to circumvent your setiings and call home without your permission much less silently doing their stuff without you knowing.

You might wanna check these links below. The opinions there might give you ideas :)

Taking a leap, going to Win7 built-in firewall: anything to be aware of? - Wilders Security Forums

Why you don't need a firewall (article) - Wilders Security Forums

Lady Fitzgerald said:

I agree Win 7's firewall is very good and recommend to most people to use it instead of a third party firewall because runs in the background and doesn't require any action of the part of the user. I use ZoneAlarm's free firewall (I also use Avast free for my AV but not their firewall) but it does require that the person using it be knowledgeable enough to know how to respond to the alerts ZoneAlarm pops up from time to time (how many one gets depends on how ZoneAlarm has been set and will decrease over time), which is the reason why I don't recommend it to most people (not to mention many people have no tolerance for any kind of pop-up, no matter how infrequent or beneficial).

Lady Fitzgerald do you know ZoneAlarm installs a tool bar in Firefox without asking even if you do a custom install. I tried several software during my experimenting phase. I know how to restore from backup. I would use ZoneAlarm if it was not for the toolbar installation. What I am currently using now is Avg free virus, Windows firewall and Bit defender traffic light plugins.

Bit defender traffic light plugins works for Firefox, Google chrome and SeaMonkey browser. To use the plug in SeaMonkey you will need to use the online plug-in converter. There might be a work around to use this in Opera since it based on chromium. Not sure if the plug-in will work on other forked Firefox builds.

Notification popups as in ZoneAlarm can certainly improve security. But I think it would be a mistake to have this as a default in an OS designed for the mass market. The large majority of computer users know nothing of firewalls and such and don't want to learn and will resent the need to know any more than is absolutely necessary. Software designers have known for a long time that error messages and popups are seen by most users as a distraction form their work and will be dismissed unread by the most direct method available. Even developers and other advanced users frequently do this as well. To most users firewall notifications would be nothing but an annoyance and confirm their belief that computers are difficult to use.

If someone install a firewall such as ZoneAlarm or something similar they are voluntarily taking on the responsibility to make informed choices when notifications occur. Intelligently done this will improve security

For the large majority of users Windows firewall is more than adequate. For those who need or want better security and options there are third party firewalls. But be sure to remember that security always has it's price.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

groze said:

...Lady Fitzgerald do you know ZoneAlarm installs a tool bar in Firefox without asking even if you do a custom install...

No I didn't since I don't like FireFox so I don't use it. The toolbar is offered when using IE but one can opt out of it during installation. The one time I got careless and let be installed, it was easy to remove.

Lady Fitzgerald
You can opt out of that one, there is another sneaky one that installs in Firefox. You can uninstall it from add/remove program. I don't know if anything remains after removal.

I also don't know if that toolbar collects any information on what you browse or if it is just basically a dumb search bar that collects nothing. I always worry about toolbars, because I use firefox for my banking. I have 3 different firefox profiles. Two for banking and one general browsing. This way I can keep the cookies for my banking. I read some toolbars can do real nasty stuff.


Malwarebytes didn't flag-it and neither did other spyware protection programs.