free firewall

I would also recommend the Comodo Firewall. I used it for a bit but then switched on my router firewall and they where doing exactly the same job so I unistalled it.

Comodo is a brilliant firewall, if you are sharing files using the shared areas that Win XP designate you will need to set-up a safe zone using the firewall network settings.

Hope that makes sense!
 
I do have a router a DLINK 624 but I was advised by a friend to get a software firewall too as it shows hack attempts on his PC even though he has a router.
 
Pretty much any firewall is only as good as its settings. The better/worse comparisons between most firewalls is usually how sensible their base configurations are.

If you set Windows firewall properly it's just as good as many of proprietry ones. If you want to shift to Ubuntu or other Unix platform then the internal settings are infinitely configurable to your needs.
 
Nefarious said:
If you set Windows firewall properly it's just as good as many of proprietry ones. If you want to shift to Ubuntu or other Unix platform then the internal settings are infinitely configurable to your needs.

Yes, my only complaint with Windows firewall is that it doesn't do outgoing blocking. ZA (and others) will alert you when applications try to access the internet (or your local network) which means if you do ever pick up some piece of software that tries to phone home without your knowledge, it will be blocked instead and you will be notified. Other than that aside I agree.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
Another vote for Comodo. :)

Switched to it from Za a while ago now, works great with no problems, and its much better.

Im curious, in what respects is it better (not having looked at Comodo myself yet?)
 
Zonealarm is a very mature application yet it still seems to cause havoc for some users, probably because of the additional bloat and "features" that have been introduced to compete with Norton etc.

I use comodo, its easy to use and isn't a system hog. And it does its job as well as anything else really.
 
ByteJuggler said:
Yes, my only complaint with Windows firewall is that it doesn't do outgoing blocking. ZA (and others) will alert you when applications try to access the internet (or your local network) which means if you do ever pick up some piece of software that tries to phone home without your knowledge, it will be blocked instead and you will be notified. Other than that aside I agree.

Usually the software can't communicate as it can't 'hear' any responses due to the closed incomming port but you are right - it is a bit pants on that front.
 
Well when i had Za webpages used to be messed up, for example on the shop site here, boxes over boxes etc... so you couldnt read what was underneath, text cut in half horizontally, everytime i tried to watch an online video it didn't like it so used to hard reset my PC, and it was always because of the TrueVector Engine of Za crashing, Comodo's brilliant, webpages are spot on, no crashing nothing, i could have even been just playing a game and my PC would just hard reset through that TrueVector Engine of Za going **** up, used it for years, but thank god im free now. :D
 
Nefarious said:
Usually the software can't communicate as it can't 'hear' any responses
:p

Default Windows Firewall blocks only unsolicited incoming requests. Unsolicited outgoing requests go through.
 
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