How good is the ICF on Win XP SP1 for home usage?

[superczar]

I use a NIC LAN based Internet connection from Hathway.

Because of certain conflicts between certain components of my home network, I found it difficult, if not impossible to use Zone Alarm on the desktop that serves as the Internet gateway at my home.

Therefore I am using the bundled firewall (ICF) on Win XP SP1
Though I have heard so many bad things bout the XP firewall, yet how bad is it really?
Bundled with AVG Antivirus, good clean practises to keep my comp malware/adware free, Is i enough to protect my home network...
Also, how easy or difficult is it for a average comp Geek (the typical TE crowd) in my apartment block on the same network to gain acces to my internal network by bypassing the Windows ICF.

Do you think you could do it, if yes, please let me know so that I may start searching for better firewall options, If not, I suppose I can stay smug for at least some time with my current setup.

 

[Sonnenkinder]

I think that the ICF was introduced in SP2 only.

I think the Zonealarm free will be a better alternative. If ZA is a problem, there are other alternatives also. You can try this:
Sygate Firewall - http://www.sygate.com/
The SP2 firewall is very basic. Not very difficult to breach

 

[superczar]

The SP-2 version is known as Windows firewall. The original SP 1 version is known as ICF.

I too have heard about the Windows native foirewall not being difficult to breach...However, how difficult is the question ....

IZA/other firewalls cause issues for me as I have a terribly painful network setup at home as I need to share my Internet connection between two ad-hoc wireless networked machines, and y Internet connection uses the ultra sad 24online client setup which causes conflicts whenever I try to use ZA.

 

[Count_Down]

I think you should read this nice article on securing Windows XP.
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/security/page_1.htm

 

[~HeadShot~]

Hey, nice article there, PaglaDashu! (or Count Down?!!!)

 

[Count_Down]

@~HeadShot~, whatever you prefer hyeah:

Looks like a new version of the article I mentioned in the earlier post is out. It is available at:
http://www.abxzone.com/abx_reviews/tweak_al/secure_p1.html

 

[bottle]

have never used a 3rd party firewall since xp released.. probably like living on the edge but so far no problems *fingers crossed*

 

[SunnyBoi]

well..the SP1 firewall aint enuf....i myself got tons of the RPC shutdown stuff even with the firewall on...still i aint using any third party firewalls hyeah:

 

[superczar]

Hmmm...The only hitch is that whenever I try to use ZA, even after setting up all the exceptions, My Network goes for a toss.....

Guess I'll have to stick around with the XP firewall or put up a fight with ZA's settings...