I used to be an avid fan of Blackice BEFORE iss bought it. Now it has become more useless then usefull, even tuning the firewall.ini file is worthless! I purchased my original copy of Blackice defender and simply loved it. I could set it to nervous, tweak the firewall.ini file to my liking and that was it.

Now iss is telling me i need to pay for an update. So why pay for something that will eventually cause problems, in some form or fashion? Not bad enough all the grief i went through in initial stages while they patched their code now i need to pay for more punishment? If im gonna pay my hard earned $$$ i want it to last longer then a year.

This has me rethinking the software firewall. Software firewalls are not firewalls!

I recently purchased a dlink 604 gateway router. Ill never use a software firewall again. (Although I do like Tiny pf) Within a few minutes of setting up the dlink and tweaking my rules Im set! This in conjunction with win 2k server log files, ill never need another resource hog of a software firewall again! Im not 100% happy with the dlink but i can see this is a step in the right direction.

So my advice is get a real firewall!