How to Choose a Firewall For Your Computer

Introduction

You've bought a new computer and everyone says to you that you need to install two things: a firewall and an antivirus. These are indeed the two very important applications on your computer if you connect to the internet but not the must-haves. Nevertheless, it is pretty much essential for everyone to have them installed.

This article is about firewalls. To know more about antiviruses, please read article about antiviruses. Also, before I start, I must confirm that no one paid me to write this article, the thoughts below are my own and are based on my own experience with pc firewalls.

When the firewall is not essential

The firewall is not essential when you never visit dodgy websites, when you're not running dodgy programs, when are aware of all programs you run on your pc, when you have well-configured hardware router with included firewall. All of the above cannot of course be guaranteed if you're not an IT professional, and even that won't stop some malicious program to get run accidentally on your pc causing you a lot of problems.

So firewall is really necessary. But "What if I'm running Windows and it's got Windows firewall in it" - you'd say. That's right, the Windows firewall is included with Windows XP service pack 2 and Windows Vista as standard. Vista's firewall monitors incoming and outgoing internet traffic, which is good, but Windows XP's - only incoming. This means that it will protect a pc from the outside but not from the inside. Vista's firewall - despite being much better - still offers only very basic protection, which sometimes is not good enough. Without additional tools like the third-party Vista Firewall Control it needs to be configured manually, which I must tell you is not very convenient and for some people even very inconvenient. The third-party control helps a lot but again only on the basic access level i.e. to allow/disallow an application to connect to the Internet and to allow/disallow an application to act as a server.

When firewall is essential

The firewall is essential in all other cases. We need to protect our computers in the same way we protect ourselves in our everyday life (against the sun on the beach, against the crooks in the shops) and in the same way we protect our belongings against the accidental or non-accidental damage (car insurance, home insurance, etc). It is sometimes never known where this or that program came from, what file came with email or what content internet site has. The firewall not only prevents unauthorised access to your pc, but also acts as a guard inside your pc by stopping program execution and asking you if you want to continue a program to run or not.

Pay or not to pay for a firewall

We pay for everything these days and it is almost always correct that what's paid for works much better than the free stuff. I said almost because there are exceptions. In the world of computer programs the competition is strong. Some programs appeared on the market years ago, some are quite new but it is not definite measurement of good and bad even though people tend to trust the established software more. Then there's the element of payment. There are free, cheap and expensive systems out there and some of the free ones are better than expensive ones, so I wouldn't recommend to choose the software by how much it costs or how many versions of it has been produced.

The best of the best

I've spend a lot of time researching firewalls, checking how they work, reading reviews and doing much more to choose the best one. And without any hesitation I can tell that the best firewall at the moment is Kaspersky Internet Security solution. It comes together with antivirus, which is an additional bonus - you won't need to look around, choose antivirus and install it in addition to your firewall. By the way, Kaspersky's antivirus is also very quality product. Initially, it was just an antivirus but then the internet security stuff was added to the product.

You can download a 30-day trial version and then buy the legitimate 1-year license key on ebay for 7 or 8 quid. They cost so little because people buy the whole bunch of them at one time and then sell them one by one.

The best of the rest

We've got to the free stuff now. There are two firewalls that in my view go head to head. These are Comodo Personal Firewall and Sunbelt Personal Firewall. Both of them perform very well indeed and I cannot choose the one that is better. Kerio is more business-like, strict and information-loaded. It has a commercial version with some additional protection but I reckon it is not essential for an ordinary user. Comodo is more consumer-orientated, more configurable and asking more questions but basically providing the same quality protection. A version 3.0 of Comodo Firewall has now been created for Vista and I suppose if you are running Vista on your computer and not willing to pay for firewall, it's time to switch off the default Windows one and install Comodo.

The once I've once had but now don't use any more

ZoneAlarm Firewall - good product but sometimes interrupts internet stream and at times runs like mad. Norton PC Security - the only product to have installed on your computer 5 or more years ago, still in favour with big corporations but I wouldn't put in on home pc because it's too big and takes a lot of resources. Be aware that once installed, it is quite difficult to get rid of. A special sequence of steps is required in order to remove it completely from the computer. All this could be found on the internet.

Tips

• Avoid Windows XP/Vista own firewalls if you can.
• Never install two or more firewalls on one computer in the same time. This applies to Windows firewall too - turn it off before installing the third party one.
• Always keep your software up do date. Set up automatic updates or regulary check for a newer version. If installing from CD, go to the internet after the installation if you can and check for the updated version.
• Make sure the firewall is running - its icon should be present in the system tray.
• No firewall is useful if it is not configured correctly. Read the documentation before the installation.

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