Business Firewall Software
When doing a firewall comparison to find the best firewall software we will be looking at internet security programs, network security software, and computer security products. There are firewall downloads for software and you will also find firewall hardware on the market in the form of firewall appliances.
It can be hard to choose a good firewall solution for your business. So many questions… What is the best desktop firewall software? What is the best Microsoft firewall, the best firewall for Vista, the best windows 98 firewall, the best windows 2000 firewall, the best windows vista firewall? You may also wonder if there is a special 64 bit firewall for your servers.
As you hunt through firewall reviews you quickly realize that in addition to host based firewalls like the one built right into windows on your PC, there are also firewalls that protect your network. These are often called "firewall appliances". An appliance looks sort of like a rack mounted PC except that its usually running a hardened version of linux or some custom OS instead of a Windows operating system.
On your quest to find the best firewall you will want to know if someone can "test my firewall" or do a online firewall test to ensure it is doing its job. You can pay a 3rd party firewall tester to do a vulnerability assesment for you and firewall testing to let you know of you have all of the firewall ports locked down with a good et of rules. You know if you look long enough you can find the best firewall software out there but it will take a while and its easy to make a mistake if you don’t know the lingo.
A web bypass or proxy avoidance is something you need to be aware of in choosing your firewall. This is where a user within your organization tries to skirt the firewall or proxies put in place within your network to stop users from gaining access to peer to peer networks, instant messaging, or other similar things on the internet that can waste your companies resources.
You may wonder if there is free firewall protection available. There is a free fire wall included with most current versions of windows. This may not be the best free firewall but it is pretty good overall until you get a better solution into place. A freeware firewall downloaded from the net will unlikely be as good as a commercial product but firewall freeware can be OK as there is often a community of geeks passionate about this kind of thing - ya maybe even me… Free firewall software can be the way to go if you’re in a cash crunch although I’d likely opt for the commercial stuff if I was getting business firewall software.
Some firewalls also double as a VPN appliance and some people wonder how to set up a windows VPN to this device using the VPN ports. There are a few VPN products out there that are both a firewall an a VPN. These include the Checkpoint VPN, Fortinet’s Fortigate firewall, and Cisco’s ASA firewall. When other functionality is bundled into the firewall the result is a UTM (Unified Threat Management) device. Fortinet’s Forticlient works in conjunction with the Fortigate to provide IPSEC VPN functionality. The Fortinet also uses the Fortiguard service to keep its software updated. Firewall routers is also a possibility where the firewall itself has routing capability.
An application firewall monitors applications (think of the application layer of the OSI model) so it has to dig a bit more into the packet. These are layer 7 devices that take a lot more processor power to process the network traffic and act as more than a simple internet block.
I guess a firewall discussion wouldn’t be complete without discussing some of the firewall vendors. I’m personally more familiar with the higher end appliances. The newest Cisco Firewall is the ASA and it has UTM capability which allows it additional functionality such as antivirus and IPS. The Fortinet Fortigate is also pretty cool. I really love its GUI. It is by far the best UTM device out there as it is has the following additional capabilites - antivirus, antispam, IPS, web filtering, VPN, and several ways to authenticate. Juniper also has a great product called the Netscreen which has long been a favorite of many people. Its interface is similar to Fortinet’s as the founder of Fortinet also worked on the netscreen. Checkpoint is another big vendor that’s been around the block. Many people consider the Check Point firewall as the best - although I personally prefer the Fortigate. Sonic wall has enterprise firewalls and a popular home small office line, for example the sonicwall tz170. The Comodo firewall is a popular free firewall. Another oldie out there which I think has been bought by Computer Associates is Tiny firewall. My buddy really liked it while it was out there free.
Some of the other firewall out there include Kerio firewall, Zone alarm firewall, sidewinder firewall, vast firewall,netgear firewall, barracuda firewall, and sunbelt firewall. Finally I’ve been seeing a lot of people researching the panda firewall which seems to continually becoming more popular. I don’t really know much about it though.
In summary, there are many choices when you are considering business firewall software. Depending on your situation and budget you will either purchase a host based firewall which installs on your pc or a network based firewall appliance. As mentioned above I certainly favor Fortinet’s Fortigate due to it being a unified threat management device, very inexpensive considering its capability, and incredibe ease of use. I also appreciate the fact that its GUI is almost identical from the smallest $800 one all the way up to the enterprise versions costing $100000.
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