Personal Firewall Software

greetings!
I have a quick question that's quickly going to escalate into a complicated one. I have a laptop that I'm soong going to be taking in to school for use during class, and there is every chance that I'm also going to be connecting to the school network. (that is, I'm in the IT department and connecting to THEIR network.) I don't feel particularly comfortable about doing this without a personal firewall, but I'm not sure what to use because in all honesty I've never needed one before. what do you suggest I use, when my computer has the following specs:
AMD K6(2) 475Mhz
192MB RAM
Windows XP with SP2
Symantec Antivirus Corporate v10.0.0.2.2000

also, price of the program is irrelevant, so feel free to suggest expensive ones as well as free ones.
thanks for your help.

p.s. if you suggest I use Windows Firewall, I will carve into your head with a spoon and eat your brains with it, because you don't deserve to have those brains. not that there'd be much there....

Zone Alarm ftw!

1. Install FreeBSD
2. Use ipfw
3. ????
4. Profit

Seriously, what are you afraid of? That your shitty OS will get infected the moment it connects to another computer. Or that the malware will escape from your box and infect the school network.

tiny personal firewall 2.0.15

>>3 I didn't ask for OS advice. I like windows. sure, it fucks up, but it fucks up in a reliable way that I know how to fix. I asked for personal firewall advice. so, in closing, stfu, get out of your mum's basement, have a shower, and stop being an opensource shill. you get what you pay for, after all.

I've used Armor2net for years and never had a problem. Good stuff.

>>5
Or, in your case, you pay for what you get. Reliably fucks up, lawl.

>>8 show me anything on a computer without bugs. nothing is perfect.

>>8
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
puts("Hello world!");
}doesn't have bugs that I know of

>>9
You didn't include a return statement, even though the function is supposed to return an int.

Talking about which, "int main()" is only valid under C89. Under C99 that's a bug too.

>>9
looks like you got faced, mistah, now either fuck off or suggest me a personal firewall :D

i find the Nforce4 Firewall good to use.. but scince you dont have nforce 4, thought of a hardware firewall? scince you seem to have a shitload of money

god damned *nix  faggots

>>13
I don't want to carry a hardware firewall around with me, there's only so much room in my little laptop bag.
and the price of the program is irrelevant because I was going to pirate it, not because I have plenty of money. honestly, I have no money :(

1. http://www.armor2net.com/
2. Enter serial
3. ???
4. Profit

>>11
It's "void main" that C99 deprecated. C99 requires main() to return an int.

>>17
He was talking about the fact that main is supposed to take two args thusly:
int main(int argc char** argv)
{
    //stuff
}

>>18
forgot the comma lol

Actually, C99 has two acceptable main()s:
int main (void)
int main (int argc, char *argv[])

Note that the list does not include "int main()". Also, this program isn't valid C89 either, since the return at the end of main() is optional in C99, but mandatory in C89. So >>9 is some hybrid that's wrong in both specs.

All the gory details here: http//faq.cp/...

>_>
<_<
I still need a firewall...

Zone Alarm is fine, but I'd be more concerned with being on an unencrypted wireless network. Nobody's gonna haxor your laptop in class, but they might sniff your passwords or just spy on your online activity. If your school offers VPN you should look into using that.

Seriously, all firewalls pretty much do the same thing. Zone Alarm is good if you want a simple interface, and BlackICE is good if you want a complicated interface. Try out a couple and use the one that you like the most. You probably won't get a lot of quality help from a message board on the Internet as far as this goes.

... something I forgot to add in >>22
If your school has done even a moderately decent job with their network, they won't allow two wireless clients to talk to each other. Sure, it's theoretically possible to masquerade as an AP and send malicious packets, but that's in the realm of incredibly unlikely. What I mean is, 99.9% of the people there will not have the ability to pull it off, and the other 0.1% won't have the interest. What good is owning a shitty Windows laptop in school, anyways?

Encryption is probably gonna be the most important thing for you, although with Windows, I suppose a decent firewall is pretty useful anyways :shrug:

>>23
it's not a wireless network, it's a wired one. it's also one that's set up so that all the computers are accessible to each other, to make certain things with classes easier. and considering this is a network in the computing department, there's guaranteed to be some smartass that will try something, which is why I want the firewall. it's happened before, and I'd really like it to happen again.

>>23
it's not a wireless network, it's a wired one. it's also one that's set up so that all the computers are accessible to each other, to make certain things with classes easier. and considering this is a network in the computing department, there's guaranteed to be some smartass that will try something, which is why I want the firewall. it's happened before, and I'd really like it to NOT happen again.

>>it's also one that's set up so that all the computers are accessible to each other

With that kind of setup, where arp poisoning attacks are possible, I'd be more worried about packet sniffers than having the best firewall.

Regardless, if you're serious about getting a firewall, it's pretty hard to fuck it up -- they all do the same thing equally well (except for Windows Firewall). Just try a bunch.

Also, wired network wtf.

>>27
>>Also, wired network wtf.
technically speaking, it's the network for the computers that are the school's and you're not supposed to bring in your own, but they don't really frown upon it, partially because there are several labs that have removable caddies that you can put your own hard drives in.