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No other single product class seems to cause as much angst to average users in their installation and day-to-day use as Firewalls. For such users, Sunbelt-Kerio Personal Firewall [1] is my top recommendation as it seems to cause the fewest problems yet manages reasonable protection as well.

Kerio dropped the product in late 2005 but thankfully Sunbelt Software, the makers of the excellent CounterSpy anti-spyware scanner, picked it up and will continue making it available. Note that the free and paid versions of Sunbelt Kerio are the same. If you don’t buy the product some advanced features are automatically turned off after 30 days. The product will also nag you every time you start it. For some this is a small price to pay for a great free firewall. For others it’s a real turn-off.

If performance rather than ease-of-use is your criterion then the Comodo firewall [2] is the top contender. The firewall itself is very robust and the just released version 3 includes a well designed intrusion detection system and Vista compatibility as well. Comodo also supports internet connection sharing, while the free versions of Kerio and ZoneAlarm do not. On the minus side the IDS is initially rather talkative and this can unnecessarily alarm inexperienced users. There have also been reports that the new version 3 has some new version bugs so it may be better to wait a couple of months until the new version has stabilized before installing. Additionally Comodo has been known to conflict with some other security products. However for the technically initiated who can cope with these annoyances this is an outstanding free product and an easy first choice.

A recent contender is the free version of Online Armor Personal Firewall V2 [3] which has been getting praise for its outstanding leak-test performance and ease of use. I looked at the full commercial version a while back and was impressed but I have yet to test the cut down free version so I’m reluctant to make a recommendation. Certainly the feedback I’ve been getting from users has been very positive.

Also technically impressive is the Jetico Firewall [4]. It rates highest on the leak tests of all firewalls but personally I find it awkward to use. It may however, be just your cup of tea.

Another tricky product is NetVeda Safety.Net firewall [5] however its performance is quite outstanding and it offers application control and content filtering as well. This highly capable product deserves to be better known and experienced users should definitely put it on their short list.

I no longer recommend the free version of the ZoneAlarm firewall [6]. First it is a very basic product compared to the commercial ZoneAlarm Pro version. The leak-test performance of the latest free version is extremely poor while the Pro version is excellent. The download also includes the large commercial ZoneAlarm suite so careful not to install it. On the plus side ZA free does have the advantage of working with Vista.

[1] http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm Windows 2000-XP, 6.5MB
[2] http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/ Windows XP-Vista, 31.3MB
[3] http://www.tallemu.com/Online-Armor.php Windows NT-XP, 15MB
[4] http://www.jetico.com/index.htm#/jpfirewall.htm Windows 98-2003, 2.7MB
[4] http://www.netveda.com/consumer/safetynet.htm Windows 95-XP, 4.3MB
[6] http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp Windows 2K-Vista, 205KB++

\\ tags: Firewall, Freeware, Software