October 4, 2006

Personal Firewall guide

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This page provides links to vendors of over fifty personal firewall products:

  • Top Picks — Norton & ZoneAlarm

  • More Choices — BlackIce, Comodo, eTrust, Fireball, F-Secure, Kaspersky, Look’n'Stop, McAfee, Net, NetOpt, Outpost, Panda, PC-cillin, PrivateFirewall, Sunbelt/Kerio, Terminet, Tiny, & Windows XP

  • Not Reviewed — Armor2net, Bullguard, 8Signs, Firewall X-treme, Freedom/Hacker Stopper, Hackersmacker/The Shield, InJoy, Jetico, Lavasoft, Norman, Omniguad, pcInternet Patrol, Primedius, Preventon, R-Firewall, Safety.Net, SecurePoint, SecureUP, SoftPerfect, SphinxWall, Surf Secret, TheGreenBow, VisNetic & Webroot

  • Gone or Fading Away — Checkit, ConSeal, eSafe, Firekeys, HackTracer, PC Viper, NeoWatch, Sphinx, & Sygate

  • Not Recommended — Internet Firewall 2000, Mindsoft & VirusMD

“The perfect personal firewall would be inexpensive and easy to install and use, would offer clearly explained configuration options, would hide all ports to make your PC invisible to scans, would protect your system from all attacks, would track all potential and actual threats, would immediately alert you to serious attacks, and would ensure nothing unauthorized entered or left your PC.” This great definition is quoted from Make Your PC Hacker Proof, Jeff Sengstack, PC World, July 21, 2000.

Important Tips — Before installing personal firewall software on a Windows XP computer, be sure that the firewall built into Windows XP is turned off. Never use two software firewalls at the same time. Completely uninstall one before installing another. Use the vendor’s uninstall utility or if not available, use the Windows XP add/remove software tool in the control panel.  After you install a firewall, be sure to check it with a service like the Security Space Desktop Audit to make sure that it is configured correctly. Testing your firewall is the only sure way to tell that your computer is really being protected.

Getting Started

Comparative reviews of personal firewall software:

  • Readers Rate Desktop Firewalls, Fred Langa, Information Week, November 7, 2005

  • [Free] Firewalls, Neil Rubenking, PC Magazine, September 28, 2005 — Kerio, Outpost, Sygate & ZoneAlarm.

  • Your PC needs a firewall, Jason Parker, CNet, July 1, 2005 — ZoneAlarm, Kerio, NetVeda SafetyNet

  • Firewalls [meta review of 24 reviews], Consumer Search, July 2005

  • Bigger Threats, Better Defense, Mary Landesman, PC World, May 11, 2004, includes testing of software and hardware firewalls from Windows (built-in XP), McAfee, Panda, Sygate, Norton, PC-cillin & ZoneAlarm software; Linksys & Microsoft wireless hardware routers

  • PC personal firewalls 2004, Simon Edwards, Dennis Publishing UK, May 2004 — F-Secure, BlackICE, McAfee, Kaspersky Anti-Hacker, Symantec Norton, Zonealarm Pro, Agnitum Outpost Pro, Sygate Pro.

  • Group Test - Firewalls, Nigel Whitfield, Personal Computer World, March 12, 2004: Editor’s Choice is Symantec Norton Internet Security 2004 [suite], Highly Commended are Agnitum Outpost Personal Firewall Pro 2.0 and Kerio Personal Firewall 4; also reviewed are E-Trust EZ Firewall, ISS BlackIce PC Protection 3.6, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus 2004 v5, Microsoft Windows XP Internet Connection Fireall, Sygate Personal Firewall Standard and Zone Labs ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5

 

 

Top Picks Personal Firewalls

Norton Personal Firewall 2006 from Symantec is based on the former AtGuard firewall program acquired in 1999, now refined and enhanced.

ZoneAlarm Pro

ZoneAlarm Pro

from Zone Labs.

ZoneAlarm

ZoneAlarm

is their well known and widely used personal firewall that is free for personal use. Note: Zone Labs was purchased by Checkpoint in December 2003.

is their well known and widely used personal firewall that is free for personal use.Note: Zone Labs was purchased by Checkpoint in December 2003.

More Personal Firewall Products To Consider

BlackICE PC Protection, Internet Security Systems (they purchased NetworkICE in 2001). Features — Effective for incoming traffic, easy to install and use, good intrusion detection and clear reports, back traces to identify hackers, and now blocks outbound traffic.

  • Practical PC review, Dave Cook, August 8, 2004

Comodo Personal Firewall, freeware

eTrust EZ Firewall,  Computer Associates.

Fireball Cyber Protection Suite, Redcannon, has firewall, intrusion detection, privacy, patch scan, VPN, parental control and mini-console.

  • See our Suites page for reviews.

F-Secure Internet Security includes anti-virus and firewall.

  • See our Suites page for reviews.

Kaspersky Anti-Hacker

  • ZDNet review, Gregg Keizer, January 29, 2003

Kensington Personal Firewall for Notebooks

Look’n'Stop Soft4Ever, English, Deutsch, Italiano, Pyccknn, Portugues, Francais, Espanol, Chinese & Magyar versions.

McAfee Personal Firewall Plus (vendor’s site). The firewall is based on the former Signal 9 ConSeal Private Desktop which was acquired by McAfee in 1999.

  • WebUser review, Susan Denim, May 27, 2004
  • IT Week UK review, Cliff Joseph, January 22, 2004
  • See reviews of McAfee Internet Security on our Suites page.

Net Firewall, NT Resources Kernel

  • Vnunet.com review, Paul Rowlingosn, February 15, 2005

NetOp Desktop Firewall, CrossTec

Outpost, Agnitum, also see their Tauscan anti-Trojan product.

Panda Platinum Internet Security has antivirus, firewall, blocks spam, privacy protection, web content filtering, anti-spyware, PC security diagnosis and repair, and automatic updates.

  • See our Suites page for reviews.

PC-cillin Internet Security — Antivirus, firewall, and anti-spam.

  • See our Suites page for reviews.

PrivateFirewall, Privacyware

  • SnapFiles (formerly WebAttack) review, August 3, 2001
  • FireWall.net review

Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall — Free download, full function for 30 days, then reverts to the free version features (or pay $20 to keep all features). See free/full comparison table at the bottom of their web page.

TermiNet, Infotecs, multilingual — English, Swedish, Danish, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, Russian, Italian & Portuguese, demo available.

  • Vnunet review, Kyle MacRae, March 10, 2001

Tiny Firewall (vendor’s site).

Windows XP Firewall, Microsoft, free, built into Windows XP SP2

Personal Firewall Products Not Reviewed

Product descriptions on software download sites do not qualify as reviews. Nor do end user write ups on sites like Epinions because they seldom include firewall testing.

Armor2net

Bullguard Suite — Antivirus, firewall and storage

8Signs (vendor site) Note: Replaces the ConSeal PC Firewall that was acquired by McAfee in 1999.

Firewall X-treme, StompSoft, from the makers of BackUpMyPC.

Freedom Personal Firewall, Zero Knowledge

HackerSmacker, also sold as The Shield Firewall

InJoy

Jetico

Lavasoft Personal Firewall

Netveda Safety.Net, free for personal use

Norman Personal Firewall

Omniguad — there are freeware and pro versions

pcInternet Patrol, Internet Security Alliance

Preventon Firewall Pro (vendor’s site)

Primedius — the lite version is free

R-Firewall, freeware

SecurePoint Personal Firewall, freeware

SecureUp Personal Firewall

SoftPerfect Personal Firewall, freeware

Surf Secret Personal Firewall, SurfSecret

TheGreenBow, French & English versions

VisNetic Firewall (formerly Ambra), Deerfield

Webroot Desktop Firewall

x-Wall Series, Sphinx Software

Fading Away or Gone Completely

CheckIT Firewall, Smith Micro Software.

ConSeal PC Firewall, replaced by 8Signs, conversion tool available.

eSafe Desktop, Aladdin Knowledge Systems, no longer available or supported.

Firekeys, Software Appliance Company.

HackTracer, Sharp Technology, (NeoWatch by Neoworx was a related product)

PC Viper, Source Velocity

NeoWatch, NeoWorx was purchased by McAfee in Fall 2001, related to HackTracer.

Sphinx, BioData, went out of business.

Sygate Personal Firewall (former vendor’s site). Symantec Shelves Sygate Personal Firewall, Paul Roberts, eWeek, November 28, 2005. Sygate was purchased by Symantec (Norton) in August 2005.

Personal Firewall Products Not Recommended By Reviewers

Internet Firewall 2000

  • SysOpt.com review, Robert Richmond, November 4, 2000

Mindsoft Firewall

VirusMD Personal Firewall

  • Vendor’s Note: “VirusMD Personal Firewall® is a micro-firewall and should not be use as your primary virus scanner or as your primary firewall. It does not pan-block incoming or outgoing data. Rather, is a diagnostic and therapeutic utility designed to help professionals save time and effort in eradicating Trojan horses.”
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