Is windows firewall really enough?

[WashclothRepairman]

My last system used zonealarm but apparently that is now riddled with bloatware.

I'm reasonably careful, I don't open email attachments from people I don't know. I don't abstain from porn but I'm also not reckless and spending hours a day watching.

I'll be running malwarebytes too. Should I use an additional firewall and if so which (of a free, no bloatware, minimal overhead variety)?

 

[Herc08]

You can, because a program can write to the exception policy and edit, uTorrent is an example of this. You could access a deny all rule and make sure to prompt you for every single program (even browsers). A firewall will not stop virsuses. It is just there to monitor connections. It will stop programs from reaching out to a remote server, or a remote server reaching out to your program. So if you have malware and it needs to report, it could block that connection, but not that malware itself.

Hopefully that makes sense. I used to use ZoneAlarm as well, then switched over to Norton, but I find that Windows Firewall does a great job when the settings are correct. Now I use Malwarebytes along with McAfee that I got from my ISP.

 

[WashclothRepairman]

Post edited for clarity, stupid autocorrect.

 

[WashclothRepairman]

Ive never liked mcafee, in my experience its been pretty system heavy. Does Norton's have a free firewall and is it worth using?

 

[qazzi]

you can use a free program called Tinywall, or if you want use glasswire (it uses windows firewall but much easier to fix the settings).

glasswire https://www.glasswire.com/
tinywall https://tinywall.pados.hu/