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5 Best Open Source Firewalls

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  • B
    biggsy
    last edited by May 6, 2012, 1:03 AM

    I wonder if the author actually got paid (by the web site publisher) for this recent article:

    http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webmaster/5-best-open-source-firewalls.html

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    • S
      sekular
      last edited by May 6, 2012, 4:14 PM

      Where is pfsense? The author has probably never heard of it.

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      • C
        cmb
        last edited by May 6, 2012, 5:12 PM

        heh  3 of the 5 aren't really open source, and IPCop is a stagnant project that we've far surpassed in popularity. The WRT distros are the only actively developed open source option of the list.

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        • D
          dhatz
          last edited by May 6, 2012, 6:04 PM

          *WRT distros are quite convenient for SOHO use (particularly for Wifi), however they're not really comparable to pfSense.

          There are various other firewall/router distros e.g. Untange, Astaro, Vyatta etc, all based on Linux, positioned for the SMB market, and which are more comparable to pfsense feature-wise.

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          • R
            rjcrowder
            last edited by May 18, 2012, 12:49 PM

            @cmb:

            heh  3 of the 5 aren't really open source, and IPCop is a stagnant project that we've far surpassed in popularity. The WRT distros are the only actively developed open source option of the list.

            Interesting… IPCop isn't completely dead, but it definitely does not have the community support that pfsense does. I ran it for a long time and even upgraded to the new 2.x version before finally switching to pfsense. Many kudos to marcelloc for the recent package, because I wouldn't have switched to pfsense without Dansguardian.

            I wouldn't argue that it is "best", but I do think a Linux based distro with IPtables is simpler and more familiar to most home/small business users. From my own experience I'd say that switching to FreeBSD was the only thing that gave me some trepidation.

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            • N
              novacoresystems
              last edited by May 24, 2012, 8:06 AM

              yeah, I've seen a lot of sites like this. A few mention pfsense, but even then it has like the lowest rating. Really strange since in my opinion, it should have the highest.

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              • C
                cmb
                last edited by May 24, 2012, 8:12 AM

                @novacoresystems:

                yeah, I've seen a lot of sites like this. A few mention pfsense, but even then it has like the lowest rating. Really strange since in my opinion, it should have the highest.

                Don't think I've ever seen any that give a low rating, many such lists do put us (rightfully ;D) at the top.

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                • M
                  mr_bobo
                  last edited by Jun 13, 2012, 11:16 PM

                  Carla Schroder is the author of The Book of Audacity, Linux Cookbook, Linux Networking Cookbook, and hundreds of Linux how-to articles. She's the former managing editor of Linux Planet and Linux Today.

                  I think that says volumes as to why there's no mention of pfSense in her article.

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