Last Night I had a visitor in My Gateway Laptop.
A number of programs Including Avast were uninstalled.
BlackICE did not report ANY attack On my computer.
So I purchasd 2 years of Mcafee Personal Firewall Plus.
Is this a good Firewall? It passed the Shields Up scan.
Mac,
I think you should be more concerned with why the programs were uninstalled!
As for McAfee, you already purchased a 2 year subscription, so why ask us here on the forum now?
Avast would have given you excellent protection with free updates.
Which one do you think I would pick? ;D
techie
There is defnitly something wrong if you need a firewall to protect you. It is possble to get all Ports closed without a firewall. You should test your PC, withoout a firewall, at “shields up” and see what ports are opened and try to close them, if that is done you could install a firewall if you want.
aha! I should have read the forum before posting my question in the Popups thread…
I am failing the ping test (?) but have the EzFirewall…
ready for advice when you are gentleman/gentleladies…
cojo
Avast would have given you excellent protection with free updates.techie I purchaed mcafee FIREWALL NOT ANTIVIRUS!!! avast pro is still my av program. I did a test with shields up with the firewall disabled all but port 80 was closed. with the firewall all are stealth.
so why ask us here on the forum now?because I can return it within 30 days ;D and it wil run on my dads PC so it could be a late present
Mac – I’m running XP-home and with avast! and just the XP firewall engaged. It passes the Shields Up test perfectly. But, XP’s firewall doesn’t stop outgoing – only incoming. I also use Spybot and my computer’s been clean for over a year.
I’ve had terrible problems with every McAfee item I ever tried – installation problems, system slowdowns and failures days later. And, on my machine, McAfee products are a tremendous resource hog.
Did the BlackIce logs show anything? Have you ever tried ZoneAlarm’s free version, or, just the XP firewall? Your Gateway should have it since it’s running XP.
Obviously, something got into your computer and if it’s still there, you need to get rid of it. And, if you’re anything like me and you can’t find it, you might want to consider wiping your hard drive, reformatting and reinstalling XP. It’s a chore, but, at least the Gateway will be clean.
Dave
thank you dave. I will reformat the HD and reinstall XP.
No the BlackICE logs did not show anything the last record it had was on DEC 21 at 5:04 PM and that was “TCP Port Probe”
Mcafee v5.0.1.5 does not slow me down and I have only 128 MB of ram.
Mac – good luck with the reformat. That will get rid of the culprit.
One trick I discovered after a reformat – since I’m on an always-on, high-speed cable broadband connection, BEFORE I re-establish the internet connection, I engage the XP firewall so it’s already up. Even on dial-up, it’s not a bad idea. At least there’s that protection already in place while redownloading avast!
Happy Holidays…
Dave
Sorry, Mac… I just use ZA free and tons of other free aplications that give me quite a good layered defense.
Mac,
Sorry, I did not catch the “firewall”. I use Sygate myself.
As has been said here, Zone Alarm is a very popular choice.
Raman had made his point here, but I adhere to having a firewall on any computer system.
Agan, I apologize for the misunderstanding.
techie
I have to make it a bit more clearly, i like the word “firewall” and having a firewall concept, i do not like the word and the concept of “Personel” or “desktop” firewalls.
…and remember responding to a ping and ICMP is nothing dangerous.
Raman ( which is my father’s name, BTW),
if answering the ping is not dangerous, then why did Shields Up fail my computer for allowing it?
I’m not trying to be a smarta**…but I don’t understand why it said I didn’t pass the true stealth test and that allowing this ping left me “open” for attack?
good morning! 
cojo
What exactly Errormessage is shown? Are there some open Ports left? Stealth mean, that the ping is not answered by your pc.
this is the “report” I get…although all my other common ports are stealth
cojo
Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since “Ping” is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation.
so, do I need the chasity belt for my computer? 
For controlling outgoiing traffic take a look to this article at PCFlank: http://www.pcflank.com/art41a.htm
Cheers, Lito.
Yes, that means, that your PFW does not cover all Ports. You have to configure it to watch that Port too, or choose a other PFW who does it.
ok, I’m a bit confused!!..nothing new on there!
I went to PC Flank site, but it does not show my correct ip address and the tests won’t run.
so what ports do I need to close?
please?
cojo
I can recommend Kerio personal firewall 2.1.5, if you need 100mbps speeds (or likewise), elsewise their latest versions are available on www.kerio.com , for home-usage these are, just like avast, free! Quite nice indeed… ;D
A link to download version 2.1.5 doesn’t exist on their webpages any more, but it can be found on: http://www.kerio.com/dwn/kpf/kerio-pf-2.1.5-en-win.exe
Hello everyone. My gateway now has all drives reformated and windows XP reloaded with all of the updates to the OS.
Mcafee firewall is installed along side avast pro.
PCflank tests were all passed. Once my 2 years are over I will try BlackICE agian pending a MAJOR update to the program ;D