Hi Windows firewall is not that bad as some might think. Perhaps it's even powerful. Just wanna ask how do you make quite secure system.... 1: Updated Windows Defender (I'm not gonna install anything, except maybe Firefox and Steam. No odd exe files. Patches to OS, also) 2. Windows Firewall. (Now this is the main part! I have already blocked any inbound connections. Any outbound are allowed. Remote control (from another computer) I disabled with usual GUI.) I also created standard user (In Linux it's non-root user). What else can be done to firewall, and perhaps other things? Any services running in background that are listening for example? Not wanting to spend money for antivirus any more, not even free like Malwarebytes.
Start here: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...l-configuration-truly-block-everything.64640/ Block block and block: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/stopwinupdates.77026/
Windows 8.1 Embedded Industry Enterprise was the only good version of Windows 8.1 and not even that holds up today. Skip 8.1 and install Windows 10 LTSB 2016 instead, it's like Windows 8.1 on steroids.
I'm not going to upgrade to Win10, that $%^# is well known! Thanks for the lists of Firewall, this is just what I need for Core networking.
hmm I do not think it takes third party tools to "manage" Windows Firewall, it just requires patience and some time ...
Contrary to popular belief, LTSB 2016 is the only real "stable" Windows 10 version in existence, but I respect your choice nevertheless.