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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.

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  • What do you need that the built-in firewall doesn't do?
    – Sven
    Jul 2, 2009 at 9:37
  • 1
    What are you using for antivirus? I'd be more concerned about that and just use the built-in firewall. Jul 2, 2009 at 13:14

5 Answers 5

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

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

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  • 2
    Everyone put your Ipods down and listin up!
    – Shard
    Jul 2, 2009 at 10:17
  • 1
    So, you mean it does more than the crappy Windows XP one? That's good news!
    – Tim Büthe
    Jul 2, 2009 at 19:50
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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.

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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? ;-)

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