Professional firewall. Comodo Firewall - the best free firewall

Firewalls (firewalls) are an important part security software, and users are always trying to offer something new from it. However, Windows has come with its own good firewall since Windows XP SP2, and in most cases this is more than enough.

According to Chris Hoffman, author of the article "Why (and When) You Shouldn't Install a Firewall" third party manufacturer"you don't necessarily need full package security type Internet Security. All you really need to install on Windows 7 is an antivirus, and Windows 8 and 8.1 now come with their own antivirus. Let us consider this point of view in more detail.

The primary function of a firewall is to block unsolicited incoming connections. Firewalls Can Block Smartly Various types connections, for example, they may allow access to network file shares and other services when your laptop is connected to your home network, but not when it is connected to public network Wi-Fi in the cafe.

A firewall helps block connections to potentially vulnerable services and controls access to network services, especially file shares, but also other types of services that are only available on trusted networks.

Before emergence of Windows XP SP2, in which the Windows Firewall was upgraded to run by default, Windows XP systems connected directly to the Internet took an average of four minutes to become infected. Worms like Blaster could connect directly to anyone. Because Windows didn't have a firewall, it allowed the Blaster worm in.

A firewall would protect against this threat, even though the underlying Windows software was vulnerable. Even modern version Windows would be vulnerable to such a worm and it would be extremely difficult to infect the computer because the firewall would block all of its incoming traffic.

Windows Firewall does the same job of blocking incoming connections as a third-party firewall. Third-party firewalls, such as those used in comprehensive antivirus programs, manual mode may make themselves known more frequently by popping up to let you know they're running and asking you for permission to incoming connection, but Windows Firewall is constantly doing its work in the background.

It is enabled by default and will remain enabled unless you manually disable it or install a third-party firewall. You can find its interface in the Windows Firewall section of the Control Panel.

When a program needs incoming connections, it must create a rule in the firewall or show a pop-up dialog box and ask for permission.

By default, Windows Firewall does only what it needs to do: block incoming connections. It has some more advanced features, but they are in a hidden, less user-friendly part of the interface.

For example, most third-party firewalls give you the ability to easily control which applications on your computer can connect to the Internet. When an application makes an outgoing connection for the first time, such a firewall displays a pop-up dialog. This allows you to control which applications on your computer can access the Internet by blocking connections from certain applications.

Experienced users may like this feature, but it probably won't work for them. ordinary users. They will have to determine which applications should be allowed to connect and may block connections background processes updates, preventing associated software from receiving updates and putting them at risk. This is also a very serious problem because you will have to acknowledge requests every time another application tries to connect. If you really don't trust a program that is trying to get onto the Internet, you probably shouldn't be running that program on your computer in the first place.

However, if you need control over outgoing connections, then you'll probably benefit from a firewall third party developer– for example, the free Comodo Firewall. It will also offer an interface where you can more easily view statistics, firewall logs, and other information.

For most users, using a third-party firewall simply adds unnecessary complexity.

The Windows Firewall actually has more features, than you might expect, although its interface is not very user-friendly:

Windows has an advanced firewall configuration interface where you can configure it. You can create rules that block certain programs from connecting to the Internet or allow a program to communicate only with certain addresses.
You can use a third-party program to extend the functionality of the Windows Firewall, causing it to prompt you for permission every time a new program tries to connect to the Internet. Among the programs that work in conjunction with the Windows Firewall are Windows 8 Firewall Control or Windows Firewall Control.

A third party firewall is a power user tool and is not a required component of security software. Windows Firewall is reliable and trustworthy. While people may debate the virus detection level of Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender Windows Firewall does a job of blocking incoming connections just as well as other firewalls.

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Today we will talk about free firewalls, the better way to protect your system without extra funds for protection. We offer three popular software products at your discretion: Ashampoo Firewall Free, PC Tools Firewall Plus and Online Armor Free.

Let's start with the product Ashampoo Firewall Free developed by Ashampoo, it has an easy and informative interface, the list of languages includes Russian, which will make it easy to configure.

To get started, just visit the manufacturer’s website, register, receive an activation code by email, which you need to enter in the program, and that’s it.

The program has two operating modes: simple and expert. Of course, the second mode is better, but even in simple mode you will get decent protection.

The program consists of five modules: Rules (configure the parameters of Internet connections), Statistics and Log (in them you will find information about the operation of the program and the status of your protection), Configuration (using it you can configure the operation of the program internally), Utility (contains a pop-up blocker windows, process manager, auto start, Internet surfing history)

The principle of operation of a firewall is that the program informs the user about unauthorized actions, offering to apply a rule for him. Also contains a learning function and can block all connections if necessary.

Next on our list is PC Tools Firewall Plus. It is also completely free and in Russian. Has very good feedback in the fight against keyloggers and blocks unauthorized downloading of information from your computer by Trojan programs.

The advantage of the program is that it can be installed without any registration. A firewall provides a hidden presence on the network and protects the connection with passwords. You can also manually configure connection parameters. The program creates lists of IP addresses, tested ports and analyzes network traffic.

Another interesting software product, Online Armor Free, was created by Emsisoft-GmbH. This software product simply has a huge set of tools to combat virus threats, network attacks, and hidden scripts.

Pro active protection controls the operation of the program. Online Armor Free scans the system and detects dangerous applications by marking them.

It has convenient and easy navigation, allows you to create lists for ports, domains, IP addresses, and suspicious programs in startup. Has the ability to classify sites for potential threats.

Windows 7 Firewall Control Plus is a small free program that will help control applications trying to access the Internet. The program uses the built-in firewall mechanism of Windows XP/7/8/Vista, while offering additional features for controlling program access to the network and the Internet.

Outpost Firewall Free is one of the best network defenders, which is designed to protect your computer from threats emanating from the Internet - scanners, Internet worms, etc.

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall is a free network firewall designed to protect your PC from attacks from the Internet or via a local network. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall offers customizable security using custom rules for packet filtering.

Comodo Firewall- one of the best firewalls. The manufacturers of this program, unlike others, offer a full version of the defender against network and Internet threats, free of charge. Comodo Firewall is easy to manage and is aimed at untrained users.

Comodo Firewall.

Free Personal Firewall from Comodo for Windows XP and Vista. Part of Comodo Internet Security. Program features: proactive protection; protection against Internet attacks; buffer overflow protection; protection against unauthorized access; protection system files and registry entries from internal attacks. Proactive protection includes HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention Systems), a system for repelling local threats. The task is to monitor the operation of applications and block potentially dangerous operations based on specified criteria.

Official website: http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/inte...ewall.html

Free firewall created using a community solution. Designed to protect personal computers running Windows 2000 and XP. The point of a community solution is that a large group of experts network security prepares and publishes for public use settings for work, which are constantly updated, taking into account the emergence of new applications. These security settings can be downloaded for free from the community website. This approach of developers should allow even the most unprepared user in security issues to easily configure his firewall to his optimal performance, i.e. Protect your computer as much as possible.

Official website: http://force.coresecurity.com

Online Armor (Online Armor Security Suite)

Combines convenience and ease of use, reliability of protection. The program performs the function perfectly maximum protection and provides an excellent user experience. Online Armor received the "Best Firewall of 2008" award.

Official website: http://rus.tallemu.com

PC Tools Firewall Plus

This is a free, easy-to-use, but effective personal firewall for Windows that protects information stored on your computer from unauthorized access from local networks or the Internet. By controlling the operation of various applications, it blocks attempts by Trojans, backdoors, keyloggers and other malware can damage your computer and steal your confidential information.

Official website: http://www.pctools.com/ru/firewall

There are many organizations on the Internet that specialize in spying on users. Some surf for marketing reasons, others spy on users of file-sharing networks to record illegal activities. At the same time, such organizations also come across honest users. Fortunately, most of these organizations use static IP addresses, which makes blocking them easier. Peer Guardian is very good at blocking these IPs. Supports lists of addresses that need to be blocked, automatic updates from the blacklist on the Internet. Blocks all types of protocols TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.

Official website: http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2

An effective and easy-to-use firewall that blocks hackers and other unknown threats when working on a local network or the Internet. Flexible settings and convenient user interface will help you quickly protect your computer. In ZoneAlarm, you can set the security level for each program individually or use general setting rules for all programs. Using this firewall, you can instantly block access to programs trying to connect to the network and the Internet, and automatically scan attachments Email. The ZoneAlarm firewall is free for individual and non-commercial use (including government and educational institutions).

Official website: http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us ... wnload.htm

GeSWall (GentleSecurityWall)

A useful, free firewall that protects your computer from intruders and malware by isolating vulnerable applications. Application isolation is based on an access restriction policy that effectively prevents all types of known and even unknown attacks.

Official website: http://www.gentlesecurity.com

Outpost Firewall Free 2009

Provides reliable protection, in addition, you get advanced protection against unauthorized program activity, which helps block unknown threats. Key features: two-way firewall; protection that cannot be turned off by hackers; application monitoring; has an intuitive interface; low requirements for system resources; network activity monitoring; Windows support Vista and 64 bit architecture.

Official website: http://free.agnitum.com

It's no secret that most users limit themselves to only installing an antivirus to protect their computer, forgetting that in addition to the threat of PC infection, there is the threat of using the victim computer as a bot machine.

Malicious applications, penetrating a user’s computer, can collect personal data and send it to an attacker, participate in sending spam, act as a proxy server, etc.

Therefore, to more fully protect your computer, in addition to installing an antivirus, we recommend installing a firewall, firewall or firewall– these are all names of the same software.

A firewall will help protect your computer from hackers, Trojans, spyware, backdoors, rootkits, and software containing advertising (Adware), from penetration through a network or the Internet.

Ashampoo Firewall

The first in our review will be a product from German developers – Ashampoo Firewall.

Activation of the product is carried out by entering the code that comes to Mailbox user after registering on the developer’s website.

Immediately after installation, you will be asked to configure the program according to the available simplified “Easy Mode” or advanced mode “Expert Mode”. We recommend using the expert configuration mode.

The principle of the firewall is as follows: for each application, an allowing or denying rule must be generated, which is processed by the firewall.

If an application for which a rule has not been assigned attempts to establish a connection, the firewall warns the user - offering to create a rule.

This statement is true when the firewall is in learning mode. When this mode is disabled, applications for which no rules are assigned will be blocked in automatic mode.

Advantages:

Free;

Low consumption of system resources;

Friendly user interface;

Semi-automatic configuration is possible.

Flaws:

– not compatible with some antiviruses;

– lack of updates.

PC Tools Firewall Plus

Although latest version The program was released in 2011; there are many flattering reviews on the Internet from users who still use it.

The program has convenient control network traffic, allows you to create new rules, hide the presence of a computer on the network, and there is the ability to protect settings with a password.

The firewall is installed without entering any passwords or registering, as is the case with Ashampoo Firewall.

Rules for application access are created manually.

We recommend not to postpone this procedure until later, because... After installation, Ashampoo Firewall may remember some applications and programs as unverified, as a result of which the latter may not work correctly or not work at all.

Advantages:

Free;

Simple and reliable.

Flaws:

– lack of updates;

- absence Russian-language interface;

– setting in manual mode.

Comodo Firewall

Unlike its predecessors, we have a fairly powerful, multifunctional firewall, which is paired with an antivirus - Comodo Antivirus.

The firewall database is quite impressive and contains information on more than 13 thousand programs that have security risks.

The set of functions is standard - protection against Trojans, malicious scripts, support for monitoring incoming/outgoing traffic, as well as network activity of installed programs, DLL libraries, the ability to hide a computer on the network, control over software and driver updates.

Note! Additional features are a detailed report system events, integration into the Provisioning Center Windows security, the ability to run applications in a specially designated environment for their safe execution - a sandbox.

Despite the wide range of different settings, the firewall has not lost its user-friendly interface; each option has a corresponding description.

Advantages:

Free;

Possibility of batch installation of firewall and antivirus;

Simple Russian-language interface with tips.

Flaws:

– increased loading time of the operating system, loss of PC performance;

– the program is not removed from the system correctly, leaving behind a lot of “garbage”.

Outpost Firewall Pro

Software product from Russian company Agnitum. To familiarize yourself with the capabilities of the firewall, the developer provides a free 30-day version.

The price of a licensed copy for home use for a year is 899 rubles, a license for 2 years will cost 1399 rubles.

Distinctive feature firewall - the ability to detect both known malicious programs and new ones that are not yet in the databases.

This function is possible thanks to a multi-level approach, which involves the use of proactive blocking based on analysis of program behavior and signature methods for detecting network activity.

In addition to the organized self-protection function of the firewall from being completely or partially disabled or modified by malicious code, the program also provides this protection for the operating system and installed programs and applications.

Overall the firewall is quite good, after spending some time on competent setup in the future you can forget about its existence, the program will provide a fairly high degree of protection for your PC.

Advantages:

Multi-level security approach with proactive protection;

The speed of the PC after installation remains at the same level;

Availability of a Russian-language interface with tips.

Flaws:

– the need to purchase a license;

SpyShelter Firewall

The program is available for review for 14 days after installation, during which time the user must decide whether the program is worth the money.

An annual license for the program will cost 25 euros, although the company provides such profitable proposition how to buy lifetime license at a price of 55 euros for 1 PC.

There is also an offer for 5 PCs - the licensing price is 65 and 165 euros, respectively. The license price includes technical support for the product. Language for communication is English.

Anyone who has ever thought about the question “which firewall to choose?” has probably encountered the magic square Gartner(a well-known analytical agency).

At the end of June 2017 Another market report has been released Unified Threat Management (UTM) - Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management (SMB Multifunction Firewalls) and in July 2017 Enterprise Firewalls - Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls. If you are interested in finding out who was among the leaders, how the situation has changed over Last year and what trends are observed, then welcome under the cat...

UTM Market:

Let me remind you that according to Gartner’s definition:

“Unified threat management (UTM) is a converged platform of point security products, particularly suited to small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Typical feature sets fall into three main subsets, all within the UTM: firewall/intrusion prevention system (IPS)/virtual private network, secure Web gateway security (URL filtering, Web antivirus) and messaging security (anti-spam, mail AV). ”

That is, this definition includes network security platforms aimed at small companies (Small) and slightly larger companies (Midsize) (Gartner considers small companies (Small and Midsize Business) to be companies with 100 to 1000 employees). UTM solutions usually contain today's typical firewall functionality, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), VPN gateway, web traffic filtering system (URL filtering, streaming antivirus system for web traffic), and a mail traffic filtering system (spam message filtering and an anti-virus system for mail traffic), and of course we must not forget about the basic routing system and support for various WAN technologies.

It’s interesting that, judging by Gartner’s predictions, the firewall market by 2020 will will remain in approximately the same condition as it is now. In 2022 according to Gartner's predictions, solutions of the class will begin to come into use in SMB Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), i.e. cloud firewalls where client traffic will be tunneled, and the share of new installations in the SMB market will be more than 50%, compared to the current share of 10%. Besides, 2022 25% of SMB users will use their firewall as a monitoring tool and middleware broker to provide inventory and control of SaaS resource usage, as a mobile device management tool, or as a means of enforcing security policies at endpoints. user devices(currently less than 2% of users use this functionality on firewalls). FWaaS solutions will be more popular for distributed branch structures, this decision 10% of new installations will use it, up from less than 1% today.

Because the UTM solutions are aimed at relatively small companies (by Gartner standards), it is clear that having received all the functionality from one box, the end customer will one way or another be content with compromises in terms of performance, network security efficiency and functionality, however, for such customers it is also important that the solution was easy to manage (control via a browser as an example), the solution administrator could be trained more quickly due to simplified management, so that the solution contained built-in tools for at least basic reporting; for some customers, the presence of localized software and documentation is also important.

Gartner believes that the needs of SMB customers and Enterprise customers are very different in terms of Enterprise's needs for the ability to implement more complex management policies, advanced capabilities in implementing network security. For example, Enterprise customers with a distributed branch structure often have branches that can be the same size as an entire SMB company. However, the criteria for choosing equipment for a branch are, as a rule, dictated by the choice of equipment at the head office (usually equipment from the same vendor that is used in the head office is selected for branches, i.e. Low End Enterprise class equipment), since the customer needs to have confidence in ensuring equipment compatibility, and in addition, such customers often use a single management console to ensure manageability of the branch network (where there may not be specialists in the corresponding profile) from the head office. In addition, the economic component is also important; a corporate customer can receive additional discounts for “volume” from manufacturers of internetworking solutions, including solutions for branch networks. For these reasons, Gartner considers solutions for distributed branch structures of Enterprise customers in the solution squares for the Enterprise segment (NGFW/Enterprise Firewall, IPS, WAF, etc.).

Separately, Gartner identifies customers with a distributed network of highly autonomous offices ( typical example– retail networks, where the total number of employees can be more than 1000 people), which, like a typical SMB customer, have rather limited budgets, very a large number of remote sites and usually a small IT/IS staff. Some UTM vendors even specifically focus on solutions for such customers more than for traditional SMB.

UTM as of June 2017:

And here’s what happened a year ago, in August 2016:

The list of UTM market leaders includes the same familiar faces - Fortinet, Check Point, Sophos. Moreover, the situation is gradually heating up - the positions of the leaders are gradually moving closer to each other. Juniper has moved from pursuers to niche players. SonicWall has improved its position a little.
What does Gartner think about the market leaders in the UTM segment individually:

A representative of the UTM market leaders, the SMB solution is represented by an enterprise-class firewall (Enterprise), which is quite easy to manage and has an intuitive graphical interface (GUI).

Headquarters are located in Tel Aviv (Israel) and San Carlos (USA). Check Point is a network security-focused vendor with more than 1,300 R&D employees. The product portfolio includes SMB and Enterprise class firewalls (Security Gateway), a specialized solution for endpoint protection (Sandblast Agent), a security solution mobile devices(Sandblast Mobile) and virtual firewalls (vSEC for private and public clouds). The current line of SMB class firewalls includes the 700, 1400, 3100, 3200, 5100, 5200, 5400, 5600 families, all devices were introduced in 2016/2017.

3. Sophos:

He is a representative of UTM market leaders. It continues to increase its market share due to ease of use, good functionality of the Security component, and successful integration with its own endpoint protection solution. A frequent guest on SMB customer shortlists, as well as for distributed networks of autonomous offices.

Headquartered in Abingdon (UK), it employs more than 3,000 employees worldwide. The product portfolio contains a mixture of network security and endpoint protection solutions. The Sophos XG line of firewalls contains 19 models and was last updated in the 4th quarter of 2016, and the portfolio also includes the outdated Sophos SG line. Sophos UTM solutions are available as virtual applications with integration with IaaS platforms - AWS and Azure. Endpoint security solutions include Sophos Endpoint and Intercept X. The integration solution between Sophos UTM and Sophos Endpoint is called Sophos Synchronized Security. The vendor's portfolio also includes solutions for protecting mobile devices and providing data encryption.

Enterprise Firewall Market:

In 2011 Gartner has introduced a new definition to the Enterprise Firewall market – Next Generation Firewall (NGFW):

“Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) are deep-packet inspection firewalls that move beyond port/protocol inspection and blocking to add application-level inspection, intrusion prevention, and bringing intelligence from outside the firewall. An NGFW should not be confused with a stand-alone network intrusion prevention system (IPS), which includes a commodity or nonenterprise firewall, or a firewall and IPS in the same appliance that are not closely integrated.”

Back then it was an innovation, around which there was a lot of controversy. Several years have passed, a lot of water has passed under the bridge, and now in 2017. Gartner no longer considers this to be any special advantage, but simply states the fact that all the leading players in this market have long acquired this functionality, and are now differentiating themselves from other vendors in terms of functionality.

According to Gartner forecasts, by 2020. virtualized Enterprise class firewalls will occupy up to 10% of the market compared to 5% currently. By the end of 2020 25% of firewalls sold will include integration by cloud brokers of security connections to cloud services ( Cloud Access Security Broker, CASB), integrated via the corresponding APIs. By 2020 50% of new firewall installations will use outbound TLS inspection, up from less than 10% currently.

According to Gartner, the Enterprise Firewall market consists mainly of solutions for protecting corporate networks (Enterprise Networks). The products included in these solutions can be deployed as a single firewall, or in larger and more complex scenarios, including branch networks, Multitiered DMZs, and traditional “large” data center firewall deployment scenarios. and also include the ability to use virtual firewalls in the data center. Customers should also be able to deploy solutions within public cloud infrastructures Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, as well as the vendor must have in their roadmap Google support Cloud within the next 12 months. Products must be able to be managed with highly scalable (and granular) management tools, have advanced reporting capabilities, and have a wide range of solutions for the network perimeter, data center, branch network, and deployment in virtualization infrastructure and public cloud. All vendors in this market segment must support fine-grained definition and control of applications and users. The functionality of Next Generation Firewall is no longer an advantage, but a necessity. So Gartner crosses out the term it coined, since this functionality is considered quite common and absolutely necessary in the Enterprise Firewall market. Essentially, Gartner considers NGFW and Enterprise Firewall to be synonymous. Manufacturers operating in this market focus and build a sales strategy and technical support for large companies (Enterprises), and the functionality they develop is also focused on solving the problems of large companies (Enterprises).

Gartner states that its research shows that NGFWs are gradually continuing the trend of being replaced separately standing devices IPS at the network edge, although some customers say they will continue to use dedicated Next Generation IPS (NGIPS) appliances in a Best of Breed strategy. Many enterprise customers are interested in cloud-based Malware detection solutions as a cheaper alternative to standalone established solutions sandbox class ( Sandboxing Solutions).

Unlike the UTM market, the enterprise firewall market does not imply that NGFW solutions must contain all network protection functionality. Instead, Gartner sees the need for enterprise firewalls to specialize specifically in NGFW functionality. For example, Enterprise-class branch firewalls require support for a high degree of granularity in blocking network traffic, which must be included in the product base, an integrated service approach to processing network traffic is required, product management must be highly integrated, and not look like a hastily compiled compilation of different engines in one product . The level of protection and ease of configuration of enterprise-class firewalls for branch networks should not be inferior to solutions for the head office.

In 2017 Gartner focuses on TLS session termination solutions to ensure outbound traffic is inspected for threats such as malicious code downloads and botnet management. In some ways, the ability to inspect outgoing TLS traffic brings NGFW closer to lightweight DLP solutions, since decryption and subsequent inspection of outgoing TLS traffic makes it possible to ensure that sensitive data is not sent outside. However, some customers using this opportunity, may notice a significant performance hit when this feature is enabled due to the high overhead of TLS decryption.

Some advanced customers are planning, and some are already leveraging the capabilities provided by the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm and leveraging micro-segmentation capabilities in a virtualized data center. These customers are looking at vendors with support for various SDN solutions, as well as their plans for further development towards SDN. Solution vendors are incorporating increasingly automated approaches to firewall policy orchestration to deliver the flexibility and business benefits that the SDN paradigm promises.

Let's now look at current situation with Gartner market square Enterprise Firewall as of July 2017:

And here’s what happened a year ago, in May 2016:

The list of long-time leaders in the Enterprise Firewall market includes Palo Alto Networks and Check Point. This year, Gartner moved Fortinet from Challengers to Leaders. Passions are heating up - the positions of the leaders in this segment are also approaching each other. Cisco was not able to take the lead this year either, remaining in the pursuers. But what surprises is Huawei, which, among the niche players, was quite confidently placed in the pursuer section.

What does Gartner think about the Enterprise Firewall market leaders individually:

1. Palo Alto Networks:

It is one of the leaders in the Enterprise Firewall market, also a pure Security vendor, based in Santa Clara (USA, California), with a staff of more than 4,000 employees. Produces firewalls since 2007, in 2016. revenues exceeded $1.4 billion. The portfolio of solutions includes Enterprise-class firewalls in physical and virtualized versions, endpoint protection solutions (Traps and GlobalProtect), collection, aggregation, correlation solutions, real-time threat analytics to support defensive measures (Threat Intelligence , AutoFocus), security solutions for SaaS (Aperture). The manufacturer is actively working on integrating solutions into a unified network security platform.

Palo Alto Networks recently released version 8 of the PAN-OS operating system with improvements for WildFire and Panorama, new SaaS security functionality, and user credential protection. An entry-level firewall model PA-220, a mid-range device PA-800 Series was also released, and the line of firewalls PA 5000 Series (new models 5240, 5250, 5260), which has been produced since 2011, was also updated.

He is a representative of the Enterprise Firewall market leaders. The product portfolio for the Enterprise market contains a large number of solutions, including NGFW firewalls and endpoint protection solutions, cloud and mobile network security solutions. Check Point's flagship products are enterprise security gateways (Enterprise Network Security Gateways include the 5000, 15000, 23000, 44000 and 64000 families). Cloud Security is provided through a vSEC solution for private and public clouds, and there is also a SandBlast Cloud solution for SaaS applications. Endpoint security solutions include SandBlast Agent and mobile security solutions Check Point Capsule and SandBlast Mobile. The SandBlast Cloud solution for scanning email traffic in Microsoft Office 365 was also released. In 2016. become available models 15400 and 15600 for large corporate customers, as well as 23500 and 23800 for data centers.

Recently, the new Hi-End platforms 44000 and 64000 were introduced, vSEC for Google Cloud was released, and a new version R80.10 software with improvements to the management console, improved performance and SandBlast Anti-Ransomware, which provides protection against ransomware-class malware. Also introduced is the new Check Point Infinity network security architecture, which integrates the security of networks, clouds and mobile users.

Check Point has also expanded its cloud-based anti-Malware solution, which can be integrated before SaaS services Email. Check Point offers numerous software blades that expand the capabilities of the firewall, including advanced protection against malware - Advanced Mailware Protection (Threat Emulation and Threat Extraction), Threat Intelligence services - ThreatCloud IntelliStore and Anti-Bot. Check Point supports its firewalls in public clouds Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, integration solutions with SDN solutions from VMWare NSX and Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) are available.

A Check Point solution should be on the short list of enterprise customers for whom price sensitivity is not as important as the granularity of network security functionality coupled with high quality centralized management for complex networks. It is also a good candidate for customers using hybrid networks consisting of on-premise equipment, virtualized data centers and clouds.

Only registered users can participate in the survey. , Please.

There is a threat of using the victim computer as a bot machine.

Therefore, to more fully protect your computer, in addition to installing an antivirus, we recommend installing a firewall, firewall or firewall - these are all names for the same software.

Ashampoo Firewall

The first in our review will be a product from German developers – Ashampoo Firewall.

The product is activated by entering a code that is sent to the user’s mailbox after registering on the developer’s website.

Immediately after installation, you will be asked to configure the program according to the available simplified “Easy Mode” or advanced mode “Expert Mode”.

The principle of the firewall is as follows: for each application, an allowing or denying rule must be generated, which is processed by the firewall.

If an application for which a rule has not been assigned attempts to establish a connection, the firewall warns the user - offering to create a rule.

This statement is true when the firewall is in learning mode.

When this mode is disabled, applications for which no rules are assigned will be blocked automatically.

Advantages:

Free;

Low consumption of system resources;

Friendly user interface;

Semi-automatic configuration is possible.

Flaws:

Not compatible with some antiviruses;

The firewall is installed without entering any passwords or registering, as is the case with Ashampoo Firewall.

Rules for application access are created manually.

Advantages:

Free;

Simple and reliable.

Flaws:

Lack of updates;

Lack of Russian-language interface;

Manual setting.

Comodo Firewall

Unlike its predecessors, we have a fairly powerful, multifunctional firewall, which is paired with an antivirus - Comodo Antivirus.

The firewall database is quite impressive and contains information on more than 13 thousand programs that have security risks.

The set of functions is standard - protection from Trojan programs, malicious scripts, support for monitoring incoming/outgoing traffic, as well as network activity of installed programs, DLL libraries, the ability to hide a computer on the network, control over software and driver updates.

Note! Additional features include a detailed report of system events, integration into the Windows Security Center, and the ability to run applications in a specially designated environment for their safe execution - a sandbox.

Despite the wide range of different settings, the firewall has not lost its user-friendly interface; each option has a corresponding description.

Advantages:

Free;

Possibility of batch installation of firewall and antivirus;

Simple Russian-language interface with tips.

Flaws:

Increased operating system loading time, loss of PC performance;

The program is not removed from the system correctly, leaving behind a lot of “garbage”.

Outpost Firewall Pro

Software product from the Russian company Agnitum. To familiarize yourself with the capabilities of the firewall, the developer provides a free 30-day version.

The price of a licensed copy for home use for a year is 899 rubles, a license for 2 years will cost 1399 rubles.

A distinctive feature of the firewall is the ability to detect both known malicious programs and new ones that are not yet in the databases.

This function is possible thanks to a multi-level approach, which involves the use of proactive blocking based on analysis of program behavior and signature methods for detecting network activity.

In general, the firewall is quite good; after spending some time on proper configuration, you can later forget about its existence; the program will provide a fairly high degree of protection for your PC.

Advantages:

Multi-level security approach with proactive protection;

The speed of the PC after installation remains at the same level;

Availability of a Russian-language interface with tips.

Flaws:

The need to purchase a license;