I would only be careful with this one. Unless you're going to replace it with a third-party firewall. Do not remove or disable this on laptops you use away from home. Even at home, if you use a 4G/5G mobile connection, you will be completely exposed without a firewall. If you are behind a router then ok, the router itself has a firewall and nat to protect you. But I strongly recommend not going without a firewall on your PC/laptop, another device on your network that gets infected with malware will easily infect and hack your PC/laptop as well.
Its why i prefer an airgapped workstation.
I believe SimpleWall by henrypp might be a good alternative. Instead of relying on the Windows Firewall (first thing any malware does is to disable it, and some Windows telemetry bypasses it) it uses the API that all other firewalls rely on - WPF. It's free, extremely lightweight and my favourite - it can run as a portable. The name doesn't do it any justice as it can become quite complicated if you were to change some of its default rules and only allow certain type of traffic through. For example my Firefox only gets DNS, HTTPS, QUIC traffic allowed. Everything else including system services is denied internet access. Not sure how relevant it is for Win7 users but it also includes a list of 1506 telemetry IPs that you can block.Windows firewall is supposed to be good if configured right, im playing with windows firewall control(WFC).
downloaded comodo free FIREWALL and it installed the whole damn security suite and wiped out some files i cannot get back.
Most people wouldnt know how to set a firewall in a router, if it has one that is.
Wi-Fi is enabled if your image has the correct driver support.
Yes, so much so that most third-party firewalls, if not all, use a feature of Windows itself (Windows Filtering Platform), the same used by Windows Firewall. The problem with Windows Firewall is that it is somewhat limited in features but for the basics it works very well. By default it blocks incoming connections, it's the same as routers do, allowing outgoing connections. For the vast majority of people this is enough. For advanced users who also want to block things from accessing the internet then you need more robust software.
Too heavy, I think there are better options.
No need, most routers come with a firewall enabled by default. And just having nat enabled already makes it impossible for anyone outside your local network to address your IP and send packets to you. They only have access to your router's IP. But the router only protects you from devices on the internet, your local network is without any kind of filter. That's why I think it's important to have firewall software to protect yourself from local networks.
SimpleWall is amazing! Super lightweight and full of features. I also recommend.
i dunno, i set wfc to only allow firefox, sdi and slimjet to get out, FF was blocked somehow but the other 2 got out ok
Windows Firewall Control is like a new GUI for Windows Firewall but it runs in the background to monitor new software trying to access the internet and display a popup asking you whether to grant access or not. SimpleWall works in a similar way however the rules are not visible in Windows Firewall as it creates its own rules using WFP. But you can enable the rules on both and close them completely and the rules will still work. It's a matter of taste to use one or the other.
github.com
I saw you reading it
, remembered this thread and thought it was worth looking at again.
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