yeah it is a pity that syngate has stopped its free firewall. has anyone tried outpost firwall? It seems okay. There are firewall reviews and free downloads at CNET's http://www.download.com

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Windows firewall sucks! The very best free firewall is Agnitum Outpost Presonal

For more visit:
http://www.agnitum.com/

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I wonder why you say zone alarm is incompatible with many programs. I haven't used zone alarm before but I am quite sure that zone alarm is like many others program-based soft firewalls that block communication by blocking TCPIP stack API in the windows systems. All these firewalls are quite easily configured to suit your need. In the firewalls that I have used, from McAfee and Norton, there are manageable rules that allow you to allow communication of certain programs just by specifying the flow and the port of the programs concerned. Say, if you run bt on a certain port or play online game on other, just select the programs and enable communication of those ports in your firewall. The programs can then pass through the firewall.

I strongly recommend that you try this first before you switch to another. Or the other firewall may just behave as zone alarm. Mnay of the games are not in the auto-configuration list and you are bounded to set up the rules manually.

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I'm currently using the free version of Sygate. I had not yet heard they were bought out, that sucks. If they are not giving free updates for it anymore, I will definitely have to change to something else. I used to use ZoneAlarm, and never had any problems with it, I may just go back to it. I have heard a lot of good things about Tiny Personal Firewall in the past, I may try it if it's still available. The first thing I'll probably do is surf on over to SourceForge or FreshMeat and see what Open Source ones are available. I use an Open Source Anti-Virus program--ClamWin, and it's great. It has updates every day, compared to AVG which only updates every four or five days. Because of my experience with ClamWin, I can only hope I can find an Open Source Firewall program that is as good. Does anybody know of any good Open Source Firewalls that are compatible with Win XP?

The only reason I stopped using ZoneAlarm is because my Fiance installed Sygate instead, so I thought I would try it. He said it was better for online gaming, although I'm not sure why, I never asked. Maybe it uses less system resources or something?

 

 

 

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I like ZoneAlarm because it is powerful. But I receive cookie problems when I visit some sites. That is the only disadvantage. It rocks with its own Antivirus system.

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go to http://www.download.com to see the free firewalls.

I've got two firewalls on, that way Ive got a firewall looking over the other firewall so that it doesn't try to connect to the net without my permission.

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I use Trend Micro PC-Cillin' Internet Security 2005's firewall. It is OK; it has a URL filter, WiFi protection (if it finds a new WiFi device on the network it will ask if you want your machine to be able to connect to it), and some other nice stuff. And it updates like every day (but that's probably mostly the anti-virus updates most of the time).

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I use BlackIce, I believe its free. It is really secure, and it can do alot of different functions. Might be confusing for some people though.

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I love ZoneAlarm. I had a few problems with it when I first got it, but after forwarding ports and adding exceptions to everything, which is so much easier to do that other firewalls, it works like a charm. Looking at my configuration now, 104840 intrusions have been blocked. I find that amazing. >_>

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