I need a good freeware firewall. I ran zonealarm with no problem until it blocked all internet acess.
Don't know why, a guy that was with me at the time had it out of my system before I can figure out what happend.
Google got me loads of firewalls, the problem is witch ones are crap?

Norton is good, but needs alot of confiq to maximize your output

I used to use Tiny Personal Firewall. Way better than the crap one in XP.

Clicky

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/

Comodo is 100% free and excellent

THX guys

Whichever you pick, stay the hell away from Norton Internet Security.
Its a resource hog and will slow your machine down to a crawl. Its is a notorius piece of software that belongs in the krap heap.

As is the case with most successful stories, the anti-Norton movement is huge, but I am not convinced.

I have been using Norton products for 7 years, and have never had a virus or other issues.

ye Norton = Resource HOG

best one I've used to date is Bitdefender Internet Security 9, 10 became a resource hog.

Currently using AVG internet security and it's also taking some resources but picking up more than what bit-defender 10 could

I use both Norton and Zone Alarm. But it doesn't slow you PC down that much

Wow, you must own a supercomputer!

I use AVG free, and its pretty much all I want. Not too bad on resources, but still does its job.

Uninstall it and install something else and your eyes will be opened...

Agreed!
What do you use Cyfer?

Wait. You gotta pay! Buying the product is already alot.For Norton when it expires you gotta pay to renew it. Any idea for renewing other than paying?

I have just been assigned to a client that has been running their Small Business Server with NO Firewall or Anti-Virus applications for like 2 years!

I am looking for something that can properly secure this server as I have never had much faith in the Microsoft Firewall.

Now here's the tricky part... this client isn't willing to spend a cent on their I.T. Infrastructure but they expect the world out of it.

Would AVG be a suitable freeware AV program to use?
And would any of the firewalls mentioned be advisable?

I am really trying to turn the clients thinking around in regards to their I.T. but the problems that they've been having is blamed on the I.T. and not their unwillingness to setup and use a proper I.T. budget.

Any advice would be appreciated.

That's the problem right there. Tell them that the problems will persist until they actually spend some money securing it.

I just started a new job and omg, these ppl are gonna pay a fortune soon

Drag 'em into the 21st century kicking and screaming

I'm making progress now Millenia.

Slowly but surely.

I'd really like to secure this poor server soon. There is so many viruses, spam and spyware flying around this LAN it's unbelievable.

Just last week I installed Spybot S+D on a sample machine and it had well over 900 active instances of spam running on it!!!

Insane! I've never seen anything like it!

So now my laptop is safely behind 2 firewalls to keep the crap from this network getting onto my machine!
I must run Live-update every 2 hours!

Apologies for the Hi-jacking...

Just to give you guys an idea of what I am dealing with.

This si the "server" room that they showed me... They seemed pretty proud of it but I wanted to gag!

Backup tapes were lying all over the place, some with current data on them.

The server and it's UPS are sitting OUTSIDE the cabinet - and don't get me started on that cabinet...

I would scrap them as a client. I would however install a free AV ASAP just to make sure that they have some sort of protection. You would have to do it on the users machines for now, unless the server isn't running Win 2003. AVG should work on Win 2000 Server, and it does work on XP for free. First thing would be to secure what you can, and I suspect it will be easier to do the users machines first.

No idea on what Firewall you can use, but the AVG AV is excellent. I have used it for years now.

The company I work for has told me they've considered dropping this place many many times.

They've sent like 4/5 different Administrators here in the passed and the others have requested a transfer... I don't know how long I'll last here - lol.
But I am trying to secure this place and improve what they have.

I might start a thread dedicated to the problems I am experiencing here, maybe you guys have had them yourselve's before and been able to resolve them.

I am up for the challenge of sorting this place out.

Gogogo!!

Id definitely enjoy a thread like that!

Good luck making the cheap asses sort their lives out man.