Firewall Reviews - October 2005

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To properly protect your computer, you'll need a firewall in addition to an anti-spyware tool. The two types of software work together to secure your computer against internet threats. While anti-spyware tools effectively stop one form of internet nuisance, firewalls stop hacking attempts, theft of your personal files, monitoring of your online activities, and hijacking attempts by hostile websites. Click here to learn more about firewalls.

	We awarded the top spot to ZoneLab's ZoneAlarm. ZoneAlarm represents a good tradeoff between user-friendliness and effectiveness at a competitive price. This product will provide you with a high-degree of protection from hackers and other internet threats even if you have little prior computer knowledge.
Download ZoneAlarm Pro Here??Lowest Price: $39.95

Below you will find side-by-side comparisons of the top personal firewall products. You can click through to read detailed reviews of the products, or scroll through to the end of this page to see more summarized firewall reviews.

? ? ? Outstanding Good Average Fair Poor Beware! Rank 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ? Overall Rating Protection Ease of Installation Ease of Use Stability Purchase Price $49.95 $39.95 $39.95 $49.95 $52.48 $39.99 Incl. w/WinXP $39.95 $30.00 $34.95 Subscription Length 1 year 1 year forever 1 year 1 year forever ? forever forever 1 year Download Link TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW TRY NOW Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Read Review Protection Blocks Incoming Traffic Monitors Outgoing Traffic ? ? ? ? Instantly Disable Firewall ? ? ? ? ? ? Instantly Block All Traffic ? ? ? ? ? ? Hides internet ports ("Stealth Mode") Blocks internet ads ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Blocks popups ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Blocks hostile websites ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Blocks cookies ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Blocks applets ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Blocks dangerous file attachments ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Block ActiveX ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Customer Service Technical Support ? Phone Support ? ? ? ? ? Email Support ? ? Live Chat ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Supported Operating Systems Windows XP Windows 2000 ? Windows 98 ? Windows 95 ? ? ? Windows NT ? Windows ME ? ? Linux ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Rank 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

More Firewall Reviews

Agnitum Outpost Pro (read review) While OutPost Pro is arguably a more powerful firewall than ZoneAlarm, it isn't quite as user friendly. It blocks internet ads, dangerous file attachments, hostile websites, and more. If you're comfortable with computers, this is the product for you.

Sygate Personal Firewall Pro (read review) Sygate Personal Firewall Pro is both user-friendly and powerful, but doesn't have quite as many features as the other top picks.

Norton Personal Firewall (read review)

While Norton Personal Firewall has a few minor quirks, it's otherwise a very good program. However, it lacks some additional features you can find in other products and is a bit expensive for what you receive.

Norman Personal Firewall (read review)

While it has a few nice features built in, Norman Personal Firewall is almost unusable because of vague popups and annoying wizards. The complexity of this program puts it out of reach of most internet users, and it's certainly not worth the high price.

SurfSecret Personal Firewall (read review)

SurfSecret's firewall product appears to offer no additional protection over the basic Windows firewall. You're better off looking elsewhere.

Windows XP Firewall (read review)

Windows Firewall provides only the absolute bare minimum level of protection needed to safely use your computer on the internet. While it's better than nothing, you should certainly use a commercial firewall product to prevent your PC from being compromised.

BlackIce PC Protection (read review)

While BlackIce adds a good degree of protection to your PC, you can get much more protection for a few more dollars with other products.

Injoy Firewall (read review)

Targeted to network engineers, this is not a suitable product for home or personal use. While it does provide enterprise-level defense against hackers, it is extremely difficult to use. It also seems to work only with physical networks - if you use a wireless connection, this product won't work for you.

McAfee Personal Firewall (read review)

While an attractive product, it appears that McAfee Personal Firewall provides no more protection than the free firewall included with Windows. What's worse, you'll have to put up with aggressive sales and marketing tactics. Stay away.