Linux31

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I'm running CentOS 5 with the firewall engage, but not the SELinux.

How good is that firewall? Should I try another program like Bastille or Firestarter?

I've installed chrootkit and RKHunter and run them periodically but they only deal with some of the threats.

How do you protect yourself from spyware, especially when browsing?

While many/most firewalls will let you block incoming traffic from particular addresses, is there one that blocks outgoing traffic to a particular address? That would seem to be necessary as part of the protection of keeping your machine from being taken over as a zombie.

I'm still a beginner, so if a program requires a lot of config file editing, I'd probably do more harm than good.

Thanks for any information you can provide.

win32sux

I'm assuming te CentOS firewall is some kind of GUI, right? Well, in that case it's likely just a front-end to iptables. In fact, pretty much any firewall program for Linux is gonna be an iptables front-end. Nothing wrong with trying another front-end. Firestarter is quite popular and a lot of people seem to love it.

Even so, they deal with a very real and dangerous threat, so it's really good that you are running them.

I use the NoScript extension.

All of this can be done with iptables, so in theory you should be able to do it with any decent iptables front-end. I just took a look at some screenshots on the Firestarter website and it looks like it would do just fine in this aspect.

Linux31

Thanks so much for all of the detailed information. I'll see about adding that Noscripts and also getting Firestarter.