To be completely fair, I took the router out of my system and tested the Vista firewall using the Shields Up tests. It did very well. It only failed in one area:
"Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since "Ping" is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation."
I suspect that the ping reply would not occur if I had changed my network to public. So, I suspect that the Vista firewall would do an excellent job when out and about--hot spots or not. I wish I had thought about testing the firewall with my network set as public too. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow. |