User-Friendly Firewalling

[Scott White]

Many good thoughts on both sides of this issue.  As a regular Linux &
Windows user these are my thoughts.

First basically this software firewall is a desktop tool so lets isolate
most of the discussion to this.  Server take other precaustions to protect
itself, including physical firewalls.

Therefore the question is does/will most Desktop users of Ubuntu want/use a
Software Firewall.  My experience with Microsoft's Windows Firewall & other
software firewall tells me no.  First I think the greatest value the XP
firewall has on Windows has to do with the fact that the system (Windows) is
run amok Operating System giving the user little power over processes that
are running.

This is why spyware has rendered many users PCs useless and why XP's
Firewall was helpful in the first place.  It's also helpful since viruses &
trojans spread so much easier on Windows XP.

Additionally, in my experience most users turn it off after time out of
annoyance.

So the last question is "Do Users Want it" anyway?  I can't answer this
question, as I'm not the only Ubuntu user.  Certainly some will have a
greater comfort level on Ubuntu with it.  However perhaps we should resist
the urge to be LIKE Microsoft, because in order to beat them we ought to
exceed them.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/attachments/20060706/53af584e/attachment.htm