[Pc_Support] Re: nForce4 firewall -- not a "hardware", but good "personal" firewall

[Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>]

From: Matt Young <matty at jax-trans.com>
> I have never seen anything on this.
> Do you have any documentation on this?

Most of the documentation on-line is marketing.

In a nutshell, if you use the nVidia nForce4's built-in MAC
(10/100 on nForce4 [Standard], 10/100/1000 on nForce4
Ultra/SLI), you have a combination hardware-driver filtering,
anti-malware, anti-hacking protection.  I've seen a lot of
complaints about it, but I actually like it.

[ SIDE NOTE:  Supposively some nForce3 MACs have it too. ]

E.g., I turn-off Microsoft's "svchost" program's ability to 
send info to them and other things _until_ I actually need
to run Windows update.  "svchost" is also the best way for
spyware to take control of your Windows system -- including
by-passing all sorts of A/V and other protections, and I don't
like to let it run _until_ I've manually scanned it for viruses.

> I would be interested in seeing a link to some info on this.

Well, there's a lot of marketing out there.

In a nutshell ...

NO, I wouldn't trust it was a "network firewall" replacement.
They marketing it as a "hardware firewall" -- but that's not
entirely true.  It apparently runs a local Apache HTTP for
services, so how much is embedded in hardware/firmware is
questionable.  It's clear the combination driver-software is
designed for Windows (unless I haven't looked through the
Linux nForce drivers well enough ;-).  But it _does_ seem
to "store" some of the settings in the firmware/EEPROM of
the on- board NIC, as I found out when I loaded an
independent installations of XP Home and XP Pro.

Now YES, I would trust it as a "personal firewall/malware
inhibitor."  It does an excellent job in giving you precise,
quick control.  I turn the sucker to the highest security
level and it instantly startes telling me what software wants
to run, and I can choose "Allow/Deny [Always]" or "Allow/
Deny [Once]", etc...

Another thing I really like is that the nVidia tools do a _great_
_job_ of letting you choose if you want to just use its
driver/software malware features with the integrated XPSP2
firewall, or have its firewall replace XPSP2's integrated.
Symantec's Internet Security seems to be far less "integrated"
or "notifying" than I really like -- at least after using the nVidia
product.

I can't find much testing other than the press releases, or
technology intros on enthusiast sites.


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org