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How does a portable firewall work?

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January 12, 2006 - 10:26pm
#1
Greavette
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How does a portable firewall work?

I read recently in the Request Apps forum of two firewalls you can run from your USB drive (ghostwall and AS3 Personal Firewall). I was wondering if anyone could tell me how these work? What, if anything, needs to be done to configure these apps to run from your USB. At home I have firewalls (software and hardware) on both my computers, but in the event I bring my external drive to surf with Portable Firefox while travelling, I would like to be able to quickly start a firewall while I surf and then stop when I'm done. I encourage all my friends and family to use firewalls, but some just don't want to use them, hence my interest in these portable firewalls.

Thanks!

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January 14, 2006 - 6:28pm
Kolya
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I only tried ghostwall so

I only tried ghostwall so far and quickly got rid of it again.
It creates an autostart entry everytime you use it which can't be disabled.
As for how it works:
Such small firewalls usually work different from what you may know from ZoneAlarm, Sygate, Outpost, etc. They don't recognize applications but work at a more basic level, usually securing all ports unless you make a rule to allow certain ports. Then you can usually say if it should allow Inbound and/or Outbound traffic and which protocols are allowed at that port(range).

Ghostwall doesn't even give warnings when traffic is blocked, it just assumes you know what you are doing.
Other firewalls may do so. I found the Softperfect firewall to be pretty lightweight and it gives warnings. It also has some predefined rulesets for your usual stuff (TCP, FTP, Mail) which is handy.
Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to make it portable yet.
It's just so you know what to look out for.

Next I will check AS3 PF.

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January 24, 2006 - 11:52am
(Reply to #2)
Greavette
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Thanks for the review...

Hello Kolya,

Thanks for the information! I really appreciate you posting your review. When I get time, I'll give the ASF PF too.

Later.

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January 26, 2006 - 4:41pm
(Reply to #3)
albator
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Joined: 2005-12-09 13:47
as3 is a good rule based

as3 is a good rule based firewall

345 portable applications:
http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html

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