Firewall: best free one for windows?

[brjoon1021]

I have read that Kerio 4 Personal has bugs. I have read that it is great and that it sucks. I have read that Zone Alarm is great and that it is sucky bloatware full of holes. I have read similar things about Sygate and Outpost free.

I can not read anymore. I do not have the time or inclination to install and properaly uninstall all of them and run the leak tests.

Please throw in your two cents, especially if you are a network savvy person or really know which one(s) is more secure and is configurable for an intermediate windows user. I need to upgrade from the XP SP2 firewall but I really do not know which way to go.

Thanks,

B.

[cszeto]

You might try calling out why you need to upgrade from the XP SP2 firewall. That might provide some clues as to which other option may be a better fit based upon your actual needs beyond the XP SP2 firewall.

[brjoon1021]

Sorry to take so long...

I have a NAT firewall broadband router and am using the XP SP2 firewall for paranoia's sake.

However, at this time, I have no outbound packet control or application control. So, if anything bad gets on my computer and is not caught by anti-malware then it can call home all that it likes.

Outbound communication and the application control is what I am looking for.
Some more knowlegable people are really liking Process Guard, Antihook, CHX-I and the like.

Thanks,

b

[cszeto]

Hmm... Both protocol and application controls are included with the XP SP2 firewall. It's just a one-time event in most cases when a new application is detected in accessing the Winsock for the for the first time.

If the answer to the pop-up is "yes always allow", then the applicaiton will no longer trigger the pop-up. If the answer is "yes allow one time", then the pop-up will come back up the next time the application accesses the Winsock.

[Bapster]

My personal opinion, I think that Zone Alarm has the best
personal firewall. Read some of the reviews from Gibson Research.
www.grc.com. This is a great site to test open leaks in your firewall, and
other utilities, such as Port probes, etc...

Good Luck!

[cszeto]

http://forums.practicallynetworked.com/showthread.php?t=2979

[davis]

in my own personal opinion, as far as software firewalls go, i prefer sygate, its small simple and easy to use. i dont use anything other then my router for my personal firewall, and i keep an anti virus updated, and run routine cleanings of my machines. but this upkeep is a lot of work to keep things running smoothly.

[cszeto]

http://forums.practicallynetworked.com/showthread.php?t=2077