Best BASIC free Firewall

The_Other_One

The_Other_One

VIP Member
What is the best firewall out there that's very basic. Personally, I find ZoneAlarm rather complicated because everything's layed out to be "friendly" I'd rather just have something I know works...

I was using nVidia's firewall on my computer, but I got tired of having 3 occurances of Apache running in the background... But I'd like something similar to that software.
 
The free version is the most stripped down firewall you will probably find. It only has one main feature mentioned earlier for flagging anything that tries to connect online. But that can alert you to any trojan that gets onto your system without interferring with other uitlities except choosing the allow or deny option for each item after the initial installation. AVG got flagged on the first of regular updates as well as AdAware. Once the allow choice is checked and answered it never pops up again. It sits quietly in the background.
 
I don't want to be mean but I think The_Other_One said "I find ZoneAlarm rather complicated because everything's layed out to be "friendly" I'd rather just have something I know works..." I think he wants another firewall assids ZoneAlarm... that is why I didn't say ZoneAlarm. But I know it is an amazing firewall.
 
You guys don't realize what I'm looking for. I just found a firewall where the install file's about 900KB compared to about 20MB for ZoneAlarm. It's totally free, very basic, and so far works great
 
Heya

May I recommend Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall? I have been using it for a long time and it is very simple to use, yet provides powerful protection.

JAN :D
 
I'm on my laptop now(doesn't have that new firewall on it, but I WILL be loading it) Initially, it's a pain to setup because it blocks EVERYTHING(including HTTP) But once it's all setup, I'll just copy the rules over to my laptop ;) Plus, I found this one much easy to setup networking between computer(IE just unblocked all IP addresses 192.168.10.2-25)

--edit--

http://www.softperfect.com/products/firewall/
 
I'll give it a run to evaluate it for you. Let's see how compares to the ZA free version.

EDIT: I just updated Ewido, AdAware, and AVG without seeing any prompt to allow or deny. ZA initially brings a prompt to block anything you don't want to allow internet access for.
 
Last edited:
That can also block updates needed for antivirus and other programs at times without knowing it. A prompt is annoying at times but allows you to choose what gets the "allow" and what gets the "deny". That can be helpful when some "unknown" new startup appears. But the basic ZA only has one of several features available in the free version. That is the drawback there.
 
I know it's a bit more difficult to use because everything's not so candy coated. However it's much more straight forward, which I like.
 
ZA as in Zone alarm?I hate Zone Alarm,its the most annoying firewall,i have the registered version(legit) and i always shut it down because its annoying -_-
 
At least I'm not the only one who thinks this... I'm probably just going to use it because of the security, but probably just on my desktop. Not my laptop because less is done on it, so I don't think much could happen(much that that one I posted should catch)
 
I haven't run the full version since the dsl router has an excellent firewall. But the free version will see popup prompts at times when "anything" tries to connect out. If that also stops stuff from coming in hasn't been determined until I run the leaktest on it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top