best firewall

[Kay]

Which firewall is better?. I have zonealarm currently set up because someone kept on uninstalling and installing gunbound (a game on my comp.). But i do not like it because it blogs down my system. I also did a search but people kept on recomending diffrent firewalls.

[McGiver]

Sygate personal firewall pro

[Coppertop]

Yep, I use sygate as well

[Jasninder]

norton worked great for me when i had windows 2000 pro, now i use windows xp so i dont need any firewalls.

[Kay]

looks promising and only 39$ too. BTW can a mod please add sygate to the poll?. I want to make sure to get the right one before spending money

[Alex]

zone alarm

[dropkick]

I've heard good things about tiny personal firewall but I've never tried it myself

[paradox244]

A software fire wall is actually quite useless, if someone really wants in your computer then they probably know about common software vulnerabilites. Most of the "attacks" that software firewalls flag are really just your ISP sending keep alive signals, or a site retrieveing a cookie, nothing real big. The one thing they are good for is temporarily disconnecting from the internet for cable/adsl users. I would recommend a cheap router, as a better option. NATing your IP does a pretty good job of making your computer invisible.

[dropkick]

I agree with paradox on this one. I just use my router's built in firewall and it has worked fine.

Go to http://grc.com/default.htm and scroll down to ShieldsUp about 2/3 of the way down the page. It has some good security tests and information.

[m_andrews808]

I'm with sygate too, I used zonealarm for a while but found it choked my bandwidth and made msn messenger crash all the time

[McGiver]

A software fire wall is actually quite useless, if someone really wants in your computer then they probably know about common software vulnerabilites. Most of the "attacks" that software firewalls flag are really just your ISP sending keep alive signals, or a site retrieveing a cookie, nothing real big. The one thing they are good for is temporarily disconnecting from the internet for cable/adsl users. I would recommend a cheap router, as a better option. NATing your IP does a pretty good job of making your computer invisible.

not to forget, it tells you if a unknown programm (i.e. spyware) is trying to send or recieve data. sygate always asks me if a new program (or a program that has changed since its last use) is trying to connect to the internet. very useful. It's blocking port scans and executing files you don't want. It never disconnected me till now.

[paradox244]

Spyware trying to send data could be the one advantage of a software firewall over a router. Even though with enough knowledge and the right router you could also stop most of the unwanted traffic with a router anyway. For ease of use and low cost the software gets the point here.
On the topis of port scans, ummm okay so my router has an open port, doen't mean you will have any luck hacking my router, and getting anything usefull out of it.

I say use the regular xp firewall, maybe the equivalent on mac, and a router and you are in pretty good shape. But, I would never pay for firewall software, just use one of the many free ones.