Firewalls Needed?

I have not really heard any talk about firewalls for Macs. Is one needed? What are some good ones?

I know Macs are not AS exposed as PC's...but I still don't want to be cocky about things and assume I am totally immune to everything.

I may drive a 2500 lb hunk of metal that can go through a house....but I still lock the doors :spook:

Thanks
DTT

I just use the inbuilt Firewall found @ System Preferences>Sharing>Firewall

I don't think you should have to worry at all to any extent of having another firewall installed besides the one that comes with OSX. Being said that, you can tell that if your still interested in one, I surely don't know of one, sorry.

Here are Some abit old list is from 2002

http://seaotter.berkeley.edu/cab/mac-firewalls/#products-macos-x

Not sure if its a complete list just google Mac OS X Firewall
only one i have used was Little Snitch and got rid of it due to there really being no need

Little Snitch
http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

Heres a MacBreak to give you a little more info on Little Snitch

http://www.twit.tv/node/4459"]http://www.twit.tv/node/4459"]http://www.twit.tv/node/4459

This post about Little Snitch and the Mac firewall has a link to a firewall-test site.

Brown Study said:

This post about Little Snitch and the Mac firewall has a link to a firewall-test site.

Click to expand...

Little Snitch is what I would recommend if you're in a position where you need a firewall that blocks/notifies of OUTgoing traffic as well as incoming traffic.

(EDIT: Removed redundant commentary that Brown Study already covers in his post. Didn't realize that OS X's firewall has an optional full stealth mode. Thanks Brown Study!)

I did not register my copy of Little Snitch and it is now outside of the trial period, so I AppZapped it. I'm not as paranoid on the Mac as I was on the PC, so I doubt I will. But if you don't place as much faith as I do in the security features of OS X, I would say take Little Snitch for a test drive and see what you think.

Any computer connected to the internet should have a firewall enabled, regardless of the operating system. Viruses and ad/spyware are not the only things one should be concerned about with regards to firewalls. There are plenty of other ways to exploit a system besides sending some OS specific malware to a system. Firewalls just make good plain sense.

I did the Shields Up test in Brown Studies link and my Mac responded to Pings and I was wondering if this is because I'm networked with a PC. On my Mac I have the 3 Advanced Firewall options checked.

On my PC I have Zone Alarm running ...

I have my firewall enabled and in Stealth mode (see the Advanced options on the firewall preferences). It is every bit as secure, viewed from outside security scans, as any Windows platform ... loaded to the gills with the most invasive Norton software ... ever was.

All you need is the firewall your Mac comes with. Thanks to the MUCH stronger security model in Mac OS X's file system, even if you firewall could be breached, the invader couldn't do much damage.

Here's a free test site from Symantec, the Norton AntiVirus people (with a popup):

http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym

I too tested positive for pings (?!), but everything else is fine.

There's a heck of a lot more to security than a firewall, but a firewall is a good starting point.

Pulse-8 said:

I did the Shields Up test in Brown Studies link and my Mac responded to Pings and I was wondering if this is because I'm networked with a PC. On my Mac I have the 3 Advanced Firewall options checked.

On my PC I have Zone Alarm running ...

Click to expand...

Routers answer pings, but I've never used one and know nothing about them. I have a direct DSL connection. Can you take the PC out of the loop to test the Mac again? Mine passed the Symantec check at the link mathogre provided.