Hi malware fighters,
The Windows Vista firewall is better than no firewall, but that is all there is to it.
See what some have to say about it:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6690672.html?part=rss&subj=edfeat&tag=Windows+Vista's+half-cocked+firewall
polonus
Well there is a slight difference to the XP firewall in that there is limited outbound protection, but previously I thought this outbound protection is off by default. It turns out that I was wrong, well sort of, it is on by default but no rules are assigned to block outbound connection only to allow.
[b]Outbound protection is…where?[/b] In an e-mail, Rowan Trollope, Vice President of Consumer Engineering at Symantec, offered this interpretation: "We have discovered that though Vista's outbound firewall is 'on' by default, all outbound connects that do not match a rule are allowed. In the default configuration, there are no outbound 'block' rules, only allow rules. In other words, even though [the Windows Firewall outbound protection is] on, it is not doing anything."
I don’t think this was ever going to be a full blown firewall as the anti-trust, monopoly, law suits would still be flying round.
even though i don’t have vista…and probably won’t for a while…i won’t feel secure with the firewall they are offering in vista :
:o
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0106.mspx
I’m of two minds on this, For security conscious people(like the regulars on this board) I think inbound protection is enough. We know what’s on our computers and what not to do(open e-mail attachments, click on links in e-mails etc.).
We also have our security settings tighter, run A/V and antispyware scans regularly and make sure that we have all updates and patches. But, for the average user, outbound protection is a must as most don’t know(or care) what they download or install on their systems.
My step children are a perfect example of this, I’m always getting calls like," I downloaded a new screensaver and now my computer is acting up".