Sorry about this, a topic that's been posted a million times I know. The reason I'm posting again is to check if there are any new options available.
I have mostly used sygate 5.5 (the last version was 5.6 but that kept running the updates automatically even when I turned them off so I kept it at 5.5) but this started giving me mad trouble when I got a billion 7300g router. Pages wouldn't load correctly, certain sites would take ages to load a page, weird stuff like that. As soon as I removed sygate (old trusted friend, not anymore...) all the problems disappeared.
I looked around the net a little and decided upon the newer version of the firewall that I used to hate, Zonealarm free. It does seem a lot better nowadays (I haven't used it for about 3-4 years). I am still having some slight problems which are not there when I am on no firewall at all, such as yahoo mail often loading incorrectly (when I click to open a message everything loads fully except the body of the message, nothing seems to remedy this until it randomly starts working, turning off zonealarm stops it). I would also love to be able to confire advanced rules and options like in sygate, seems stupid to have a firewall that you can't really configure.
I went for Zonealarm because almost all the other reviews I read say that most of the free firewalls out nowadays cause even more trouble than what I'm currently experiencing.
Could anyone shed some light? What about using the hardware firewall in the router, feasible?
As far as the best free firewall goes, you hit the nail on the head
by using Zone Alarm free. I've been using ZA for about a year and
for me, it really is the best. As far as problems loading pages
i have naot had any. It could be caused by a conflict between
Zone Alarm and your hardware firewall. I'm not really sure on that though.
I've uninstalled Zonealarm, it started getting on my nerves almost as much as it did in the old days.
I've installed Comodo which seems pretty good so far, it actually lets you have a home network with internet connection sharing which zonealarm wouldn't let you do. It seems very configurable too which is why I used to like sygate. Only thing about it is that it has a few different modes which I'm not sure why they should exist (apart from an "allow all" and "block all" modes, for obvious reasons) so that's confusing me a bit at the mo but I'll read up a bit about that tomorrow.
It's got an added layer of virus/malware protection too which can't be bad, just be sure to uncheck the boxes that install the toolbar and change your searching and send you emails when you install it.
Windows firewall or comodo for free software firewall,would'nt go near ZA even if offered a million euro's ,well ok maybe for a mill i would but no less
Edit:
antivirus freebies
clamwin avira
both lite tho avira has an annoying popup asking you to go pro every so often
avg 8.0 it's ok tho bloated
avast- ideal for new internet users,can slow things down as it scans every thing you load but imo the most secure for newbs
spyware
spywareterminator-no ifs, no buts
NAT firewall-assuming you know how to configure one,i tried last week after being pestered by a member in two other posts (you know who you are lmao..:p ),yeah well it ain't that easy or certainly not for mine
EDIT: Im using comodo, have been for the last 4months so far i'm like'n it,works like windows fw,don't even notice it,i quite like the timed install new program feature
