I would install Bitdefender antivirus plus and use the windows firewall of windows 7
It seems to be a 2 way firewall.
I also enable the SPI firewall of my linksys router E2500
The devices I use are all wifi devices: 2 laptops, an ipad and a smartphone.
Is this windows firewall secure enough?
Windows Firewall is a 2 way firewall but the default setting allows all outbound connections so it's basically a 1 way firewall in the default state.
It's a good firewall. I only recommend advanced users to take control also over the outbound connections as it can be difficult to configure properly.
Your router will probably block all connection attempts from the Internet which means the Windows Firewall won't have to do much. Unless you've directly or indirectly opened up ports in the router with Remote Management, Port Forwards, UPnP etc.
You can try with the different tests in the service ShieldsUp for example: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
Then disable Windows Firewall and run the tests again and you'll know how the router is protecting you.
If the router blocks all incoming Internet connections it means the Windows Firewall is left taking care of connections from other devices inside your local network (LAN).
thanks for your answer.
To use block all outbound in windows firewall I've tried windows firewall notifier from www.wfn.codeplex.com
in a win 7 virtual machine. On my real host I use allow all for outbound and when I start a browser (internet explorer) on my virtual machine I didn't get a notification window.The browser didn't work because of "block all".I've also tried it with "allow all" for outbound on the windows firewall on my virtual machine but I didn't get a notification window.
To start the notifier I executed console.exe en choose the selection " enable notification".
When i execute disableWFN.exe it says it didn't find a scheduled task "WindowsFirewallNotifierTask"
They say windows firewall notifier creates a scheduled task linked to event log.
The problem of the scheduled task is because I didn"t run disableWFN as administrator.When I run it as administrator it finds the scheduled task.
Haven't tried that myself. I use Windows Firewall Control(WFC) by BiniSoft: Windows Firewall Control
I think it's a great product. It gives you a new and much better interface/GUI for Windows Firewall. I wrote some info about it here:
EST free firewall for win 7 home
I've also tried windows firewall console and it works.I will use that.Thanks.
I have also a windows 8 PC but can the windows firewall control be used on windows 8.
When you use an app of the store you have no desktop and I beleive you cannot see the popup's of windows firewall control.
I have done the test on a virtual machine. If you use an app with an internet connection there is no popup in the screen of the app. If it's blocked you have to switch to the metro interface and then you have to choose the desktop.There you will find the popup of wfc.
Quote