*hates firewalls and would prefer to lose disk contents than put up with using one*
you are kidding right?
Brian AwPhuchnope, no kidding, they really annoy me.Easy solution.
Spend $10.00 (w/rebate) and buy a hardware firewall / router on sale during most weeks.
Install hardware firewall / router in between the broadband modem and the PC.
The only drawback is that the hardware firewall is not "application aware" so it can't detect outbound traffic from trojans or spyware but it is much less annoying and doesn't slow down the PC like the Zonealarm crowd.
Also, if you are an advanced user and wish to set up complicated firewall rules you will need to use a software firewall or a more advanced hardware product like a Linksys WRT54G (which runs emedded Linux ARM as it's OS) that lets you ssh in and set up rules from the command line.i just do not like firewalls, there are times when people need to ping you or connect to a specific port for some reason. my data is a price i am willing to pay for lack of irritations Well, I installed rcFirewall.dsl and then selected to enable it in the MyDSL menu. I get a nice friendly message telling me that the machine is secured.
I then initiate a port scan of the box (yes - from another machine on the network) and it lights up like a Christmas tree - just like before I installed the firewall. Obviously something is not right. Am I missing something? I changed nothing - took the defaults all the way.
