louds of peoples dont use firewalls. they dont know that firewalls are important in internet security. firewall is very useful for begginers on net. they dont know what are they clicking. they dont even read what are they installing. its just important to install something, never mind what is. and then they get slow pc with louds of errors. why' because they have on their comp all the craps from net.

i remember when i was first time on net. a louds of pop-ups, with sings like: you have win a prize, or like this one: you have win a 1000$. i just clicked on money prize and in a moment something was installing. i couldnt cancel it or close it. my comp was so slow. of course i havent got a firewall or antivirus or even spyware protection. i was so stupid. i tried everything(system restore, deinstalling manualy) but it couldnt erase the crap. i reinstalled windows and it was all normal. i learned a lesson. from that day im using firewalls and spyware protection. i tried allmoust every personal firewall.

i am now using kerio personal firewall, and i am happy because it protects me. i also use Spyware serach and destroy and Adaware(best for syware protection). i can now say that my comp is safe. and im not falling on popup prizes.

but does anywone knows are their better firewalls than kerio, couse im still seraching for software which will alow me to sleep in peace.

any sugestions?

Firewalls are good softwares and make your computer more safe and secure from various internet attacks but they can be pain as well for beginners...because firewalls they stop applications to gain internet access depending upon wheather have you allowed that application or denied the internet access. I am in HP's Technical support and we hear lot of problems of the customer saying that they are getting PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED...after doing most of the troubleshooting we find out that it was the firewall which was creating the problem and these days whenever a customer says that he is facing problem of not getting the webpages, email or infact in any network activity my first question is "do you have firewall?" and beleive me most of the time...they have one and problem gets resolved once we disable the firewall.....so basically what I want to say is that its good to have firewalls but knowing their working is equally important.

My friend learnt about the advantages of a firewall the hard way, by getting the Sasser virus! The Windows firewall with SP2 seems to work pretty well, but I still use Norton if only for a working pop-up blocker!

The best firewall is Outpost. I saw a thread on anandtech (sic.), and I found out that it was very good because it was put through several tests...and Outpost came out to be the best one.

You can view what firewalls people from trap17 use here: http://www.trap17.com/forums/page-1-t7747-s0.html

I personally think that Zone Alarm is a good firewall. It is free and should not be confused with Zone Alarm Pro (made by the same company but you pay for it because it has more features). It has blocked many access attempts to my computer. None of them were high rated but still I am glad that I have a firewall.

I also use Zone Alarm and it has saved me greatly.

I have once downloaded a file, scanned with AVG 7 free... nothing detected... clicked it and BAM, HIDDEN TROJAN VIRUS ACTIVE!

Good thing zone alarm denied its many attempts to connect while I removed it... but it wasn't enough. It had disabled my registry editor and task manager..... but thanks to system restore and going back a few days... (nothing important was lost... *whew*) All was ok.

Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware SE are great tools in getting rid of spyware..... but I recommend that you give SpySweeper a try as well. I did and it found a trojan on my computer which wasn't active, but my AVG, Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware SE did not detect it.

I hate spyware and all those sneaky things that try to do stuff on your computer without you knowing.

Zone Alarm used to screw up some of the sites I'd visit, so I ditched it for Sygate Personal Firewall.

Firewalls are definately a must in today's internet technology. Without them, trojan horses and viruses can get into your PC without your knowledge. I am using Norton Internet Security and so far it has been serving me well. However, it's interface and load time seems laggy and takes a long time to load. It always slows down my computer likewise.

I'm not sure about other Firewalls. Probably if anyone can tell me which Firewall loads fastest and doesn't slows down a computer in anyway, still serving as a good firewall that protects from pop-ups and keypresses records additionally.

i would always have a firewall and antivirus on each computer, then a hardware firewall in my router. im thinking of getting a better hardware firewall that auto filters any attempts of access.