What is the best firewall?

[WinkOsmosis]

I bought and use ZoneAlarm Pro but I've been hearing that it sucks.. is it inadequate? What better firewall is there?

 

[Atrail]

Did you have any intrusions with Zonealarm? It has been working fine for me. Maybe not the best but adequate.

 

[gwlam12]

i was just about to post this question.

i'd also like to know.

zonealarm and sygate used to get high user ratings on download.com. but now they're down to 66 and 75?? what happened?

 

[Orunitia]

Originally posted by: gwlam12
i was just about to post this question. i'd also like to know. zonealarm and sygate used to get high user ratings on download.com. but now they're down to 66 and 75?? what happened?

Well mainly it's because the more recent versions of them are much more bloated, slower to load, while taking up more space. Besides that many people don't like the idea of having to renew their subscription just to get updates and patches to their firewalls. There are a few alternatives like Atguard OutPost and Kerio's Personal Firewall. They're both pretty good firewalls that fulfills their function while not being a resource hog.

I'm currently using Kerio since it's both small, leaves a small footprint, free , and does what it's suppose: monitoring traffic packets between the internet and your computer and only letting those that fit your rules to get through. Though perhaps a bad thing about it is that it doesn't have any email filtereing tools or ad blockers. But then again that's not part of a firewall's function. I would definitely recommend that you guys gives those two a try if you're looking for an alternative from the more well-known software firewalls.

You guys can also consider getting a router w/ NAT support instead.

 

[BCYL]

The interface on the newer ZoneAlarm version sucks major @ss... everyone I talked to prefer the old interface more... The old one is much more simple and easier to use... The firewall itself though, works just as well in any version...

Another firewall you may want to try (if you get tired of zonealarm) is Tiny Personal Firewall... I have heard good things about that one too... And it has this sandbox feature which protects your PC when running scripts from the net...