The perfect firewall...

[HackersWarrioR]

Hah

Any good Hacker will tell you firewall are useless against any skilled person,but you can use Zone Alarm or a Norton just too see if somebody attacks you!
Those attacks are not really Hackers attack but rather Lamer like Trojan, Dos, and more. Those people don’t know what they are doing,so don’t by afraid!
Firewall can by useful if a person make a scan,looking at vulnerability on the network,your PC will by invisible.
Personally I will recommend Zone Alarm because it’s FREE!!!

[instronics]

Hi there.....

best firewall...no such thing.

First of all...a firewall does not mean that you are safe (if you intend to leave any services running), there is more to security than just a firewall. If its only a personal computer at home, then most of the free downloadable firewalls will do (tiny, za, norton, outpost etc...)

It is also important that you tighten your system configuration, make sure you have no applications running that access the net that you dont need. If its a single station, then its best you block all incomming requests, but always remember that a firewall can be fooled. Try closing as many ports (services) as possible, have an uptodate antivirus running, all the service packs you need, and then put up a firewall. The firewall will only block what you specify...so if the firewall is badly configured (any firewall), then its useless.

Setting up a firewall is something you must take your time with, read the manuals, understand what it is exactly (a packet filter), how it works, what it can do and what not. A firewall is not a way to keep your data safe. Its just a door that can be placed at the entrance of your computer, filtering what goes in and out (only filtering what you have specified).

Maybe Tiny firewall is your best bet for a single home PC, its easy to use and has many nice options (do not attempt to compare it to other firewalls).

If you wanna keep it free, then have a look at www.webattack.com , goto the frewware area, and look for firewalls. Be sure to read all the types that are offered, take your time with this.

Every firewall listed there also has a link to the vendors website, so take your time to goto each site from there and read what the features are for each firewall.

Good luck and happy "hunting"

[Virtus]

I installed Smoothwall on a old system with 3 nic´s and its superb... ohh ya.. and freeware..
Very easy to install and configure..

Check www.smoothwall.org

[jared_c]

For our personal computers, we use Zone Alarm. It has worked great for us, and is easy to setup. www.zonelabs.com

[Chuck56]

I think the main benefit to having a software firewall on a home network is the invisibility, or stealth. My firewall has a backtrace feature, so if I'm hit I can backtrace the 'attack.' I think that's a mistake. If the ping is genuine and if you do backtrace, wouldn't you be telling the person who pinged you that, "hey, you found me."

I'm still learning all this stuff and would appreciate any responses. If I'm right, then the new firewall users would be wise NOT to backtrace, especially if they plan to stay online after doing so.