Windows 98SE Firewall Question

[musclemom]

Alright, this is a repost, I need some educated responses. I posted this last night, got no looks (forget responses). This is important to me, as y'all can see, I'm making it worth your while

Okay, I have Windows 98SE .... I actually HAVE to have it for my job, no kidding, the wordprocessing program the company requires me to use operates in DOS.

I just found out that my firewall is no longer supporting Windows 98 or ME because Microsoft (fuck you Gates) is discontinuing support next month, fucker.

Now I am at a crossroads. I would really rather not purchase another computer just so I can get access to the internet, but if ALL firewalls and virus protection are going to do this that's exactly what I'm going to have to do because I will be jeopardizing my work, obviously.

Soooooo, my question is, does anyone know if this is going to be the story everywhere, or can I just purchase, say, Norton's firewall? I already went out to the Symantic website and couldn't find anything this particular issue.

 

[Devastation]

buy a router with a built in firewall. problem solved

 

[wootool]

I checked my favorite spy/virus/firewall (zone alarm) and it needs XP as well.

your best bet might be getting a DOS emulator and install it on an XP machine (it tricks the programs like your word processor into thinking its running on a DOS machine - intercepts interrupt calls and x86 specific instructions and remaps them.)

here's one I found

http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2004/04/xp_dos_emulator.html

(oh wait, wrong forum for that)

 

[wootool]

part 2-->

Norton looks like it still supports 2000 and ME (even 98)

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/sysreq.jsp?pcid=is&pvid=npf2006

 

[drrman]

buy a router with a built in firewall. problem solved

HE nailed it, i've said this many times before, software firewalls are a joke....if you buy ANY router it will act as a firewall, blocking ALL incoming port requests and scans

in today age i would NEVER put one of my machines directly on the internet with ANY kind of bullshit software firewalls, zonealarms etc.....shit just slows down your pc, costs you money, causes problems, all this can be solved by the router

 

[wootool]

HE nailed it, i've said this many times before, software firewalls are a joke....if you buy ANY router it will act as a firewall, blocking ALL incoming port requests and scans

most or all the software firewalls are combo products that do alot more (virus protection, anti-spyware etc). but yup, hardware router will do you.

p.s. most people think "firewall" accomplishes the other combo functions.

 

[musclemom]

Okay, if I know paranoid neurotic husband the router has a built in firewall that's running ... I know he has it set up so that if someone tries to ping the wireless it tells them to go away.

So I can just uninstall zonealarm and rely on the router's firewall and Norton AntiVirus. That would be great, my systems drag-ass slow already and I don't feel like upgrading. I do the accounting on this computer, too, so I just don't want to do anything stupid.

Gentlemen, thank you. The karma santa will be putting something in all your stockings

 

[drrman]

Okay, if I know paranoid neurotic husband the router has a built in firewall that's running ... I know he has it set up so that if someone tries to ping the wireless it tells them to go away.

So I can just uninstall zonealarm and rely on the router's firewall and Norton AntiVirus. That would be great, my systems drag-ass slow already and I don't feel like upgrading. I do the accounting on this computer, too, so I just don't want to do anything stupid.

Gentlemen, thank you. The karma santa will be putting something in all your stockings

yes, the router will block everything coming in, except those connections opend by outbound traffic which you have to have. as for the ping, you can allow echo or not, not a big deal.....even if someone pings your IP(router) it doesn't really matter rather or not they get a reply .now if you get to a point where you need a certain port open such as if you are running an FTP site or something from your computer you would have to go in the router and manually input a route in the router, but i highly doubt the normal user will ever have to do anything like that.

 

[steve-o]

if you do buy a new computer there is always vmware. It's great little program acts as emulator I used it at school when we where using linux.

 

[bearfx]

Check out Tiny's Personal Firewall v2. I still use it, even though it is at v5 (I think). Unless their is a specific security problem with your existing or older firewall, it is perfectly OK to continue using it. It is not like antivirus software, and does not require constant updating.

Tiny's PF v2.15 was their last free release. If you have any trouble finding it, just PM me and I can help.

Their are other options as well. The suggestion to use VMWare is a good one. On any reasonably modern machine, a VMWare session of Windows 98 will run as fast as a native installation. Further, the VMWare player is free for use. If you would like to try VMWare, but don't want to plonk down the money for a full version, PM me and I can create a Win98 image usable on with the Free VMWare player.

Hardware firewalls are also good, but I recommend everyone use both hardware and software. I use a hardware firewall to keep external traffic out of my network , but it does not allow you to limit, on a per application basis, outgoing traffic. The only reason I use a software firewall is to stop programs from "phoning" home... I absolutely hate it when program do.