I currently use TinyWall Firewall, it works very well, it’s small/portable, no complaints I even donated to the Dev but I would really prefer open source, also it needs to be user friendly like TinyWall so my non-tech family members can/will use it like they do with TinyWall.
Okay, so this is a more topic-adjacent meta commentary, but this thread is a great example of something stupid.
Why is it that when people show up on the internet to ask how to do something, a bunch of people jump in to say that thing isn’t worth doing?
I don’t know how many times I’ve been googling for a solution to a problem and I keep finding people who tell OP not to bother rather than either providing a solution or just like, not commenting on a thread they’re incapable of helping in.
Like, y’all get that these conversations turn into google results, right? You know how frustrating it is to google something and the first answer that comes up is ‘google it’? Or better yet ‘you can’t’ in response to a problem that’s absolutely doable.
Just let people do their weird little niche projects that fit their needs! You don’t need to understand why.
Drives me up a wall.
There is a basic misunderstanding in OP’s formulation: a “firewall for” is something one needed with Windows XP and earlier, as in a piece of software that acted as a firewall; nowadays, both Windows 7+ and Linux come with a built-in firewall, that one might want a “GUI for {}'s firewall”.
Whether people feel more inclined to explain the misunderstanding, or to just spew a “you can’t” that’s technically correct but unhelpful… YMMV, different people are different and may be of different mood at different times 🤷
There seems to be a misunderstanding:
- A “firewall for” is something one needed with Windows XP and earlier, as in “a piece of software that acted as a firewall”.
- Nowadays, both Windows 7+ and Linux come with a built-in firewall, that one might want a “GUI for {}'s firewall”.
One of such GUIs, is TinyWall, that is also FOSS (GPLv3). I see people have suggested some more.
To be precise, all these options are inferior in functionality to firewalls like ZoneAlarm… but since you’re asking for a non-tech friendly solution, they should be adequate.
Update: I just discovered that TinyWall is now FOSS, GitHub Link If a very powerful, easy to config/maintain Windows firewall that is also now FOSS is something your interested in, I highly recommend giving TinyWall a try
What’s wrong with the built in windows firewall? It works well, has a GUI to add rules, etc… You don’t even need to touch it on a default setup for most people.
Because it’s awful to use, counter-intuitive, and fucking breaks network connectivity all the time by switching private networks to public on a whim.
Fuck that piece of shit for that reason alone. I’ve seen it fuck domain controllers doing this, when “supposedly” it can’t do this on a DC. Know what happens then? I can’t RDP to the server from it’s own local network.
This is such a problem we run a powershell script on a schedule to ensure the connections remain private.
