Anyone know a good, free firewall?

Can anyone recommend a good, free firewall?

I have McAfee at the moment but need to save money.

Is Windows firewall safe or any good?

Cheers

Basil

windows firewall is well, a load of rubbish.

Some people use zone alarm, I *think* you can get it for free.
I still use sygate personal firewall on my laptop (without issue).
You might be able to get it online still (it was bought over by norton *spit*).

AVG is a good antivirus if that helps,as for firewalls,no i don't.I have a firewalled router,plus windows firewall.Perhaps Norton firewall,tryed that one.

Comodo personal firewall ( http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/ ) its brilliant

I have AVG Internet Security on my desktop, it does the job nicely (but it's not free).

Sorry Perturbatio there is a full AVG install with antivirus and firewall.
But im using the free AVG antivirus.So AVG is a good choice,if there firewall is as good as there antivirus,Basil.

Online Armor is really powerful. It's free.

http://www.tallemu.com/free-firewall-protection-software.html

ZoneAlarm.

I heard it was made with Blitz3D.

ZoneAlarm is not made with Blitz3D and there's really not much wrong with Windows Firewall as long as all you want is basic intrusion protection. For most people Windows Firewall and an off-the-shelf NAT based router is probably adequate.

Darkheart

On Windows, I usually never install more than an anti-virus software (nowadays NOD32, because my employer pays for it) and otherwise I just use the built-in "Windows Firewall". I don't have suicidal tendencies and don't double-click on everything that moves and I also don't install backdoor-software like Skype, so that's enough protection for my rather modest level of paranoia.

Windows-based software firewalls are toys anyway, and most of the time they're more annoying than useful. For a home environment, buy a Linux-based DSL router and use its firewall. For a business environment, I can recommend Juniper Netscreen or Cisco PIX firewalls or, when you're on a tight budget, use a dedicated PC with OpenBSD (still the safest OS around).

And when you're travelling with a notebook, use common sense when you're online. The Windows Firewall -does- protect you from INCOMING attacks, but it won't protect you from outgoing traffic and spyware - that's where the anti-virus software enters the game.

I have not had any spyware,mailware,whateverware.Viruses you name it in about 3 maybe 3 and half years,by using these programs.

AVG free anti virus.
Spybot search and destroy.
and a program i love called regcleaner.(Cleans out the blobs)

:)

That depends largely on your definitions of "safe" and "good". If you're already behind a NAT or similar functionality, it's utterly pointless. If you're not it's at best inadequate. Still better than nothing at all I suppose.

Personally I use ESET Smart Security. Anti-Virus, Spam filter and Firewall in one. Not free though but fairly inexpensive, and with a very low footprint.

openSUSE 10.3 has a good firewall built-in. You don't need Windows.

Probably the biggest catch with XP SP2's built in Windows Firewall, and one of the things that makes it considered one of the weakest available options, is that it only does ingress filtering. What that means is that it will block stuff trying to come into your machine, but it won't block stuff trying to leave your machine. So, if you get some sort of spyware or worm that isn't picked up by your AV, and it decides to make an outbound connection to some machine in China or whatever, you'll never see it.

With some of the other solutions mentioned here, they do egress filtering, so you'll get an alert saying that some unknown app is trying to make an outbound connection, even if your AV doesn't know anything about it.

Get any old box and install PFSense (or m00nowall) on it. Or buy a fit-pc and do the same. It's a FreeBSD based firewall that works great.