What's the best free PC firewall?

[ahofle]

Since internet search engines are now completely useless when searching for free software, I'm asking here!
I've been using Kerio Personal Firewall for years (I had to keep an old version before they changed to Sunbelt and started charging money for it).  Well, I tried installing it on Windows 7 and it no longer works so I'm now trying to find a replacement.  I'm looking for something very lightweight that notifies on outgoing connections, thus Microsoft's firewall won't do.  I've probably discovered more malicious programs by discovering and blocking their outgoing connection attempts with firewalls than both virus scanners and spyware removers combined.  Any advice would be appreciated.

[CCM]

I always had good luck with Zone Alarm free.

http://download.cnet.com/ZoneAlarm-Free-Firewall/3000-10435_4-10039884.html?tag=mncol;1

[Howard_Casto]

That isn't too far from the truth. 

I prefer hardware firewalls myself.  Your dinky little router can probably do a bit of double-duty as a firewall.  Really any physical device between your pipe and your pc is helpful. 

Virus scanners and malware removers are what you use after you've already gotten a virus, they don't prevent them.  What you want is a "resident shield."  It's an app that constantly checks your processes to see if anything quirky is going on and closely watches the behavior of a exe as you launch it. It's not the same as a firewall.  Firewalls are different.... they just monitor network traffic.  I don't think I've ever heard of a virus caught via a network hack on the consumer level.  Rest assured, you let that virus in all by yourself.   

The best shields are the ones that are integrated into a good anti-virus/anti-malware.  As usual, AVG is what I reccomend. 

It won't catch everything, but nothing does and it's a good balance between keeping you safe and keeping your pc so bogged down from scanning that it's unusable. 

[Dervacumen]

As usual, AVG is what I reccomend. 
 

I used AVG for a long time until I couldn't bear the nag screens any longer.  Are those still around?  I'm now using Avast which also has a nice resident shield.  Thing is, I did a boot scan recently and found all kinds of crap that wasn't detected using my normal virus scans so I can see the value of monitoring outgoing packets.  I used Zone Alarm about a decade ago but never really saw the benefit of a standalone firewall application, since pretty much any consumer router has decent protection built in.

[Turambar]

Honestly the Win 7 firewall plus the free Microsoft Security Essentials combined with the security of your router is more than enough protection.

[Cakemeister]

Honestly the Win 7 firewall plus the free Microsoft Security Essentials combined with the security of your router is more than enough protection.

Agreed.

[AtomSmasher]

As usual, AVG is what I reccomend. 
 

I used AVG for a long time until I couldn't bear the nag screens any longer.  Are those still around?  I'm now using Avast which also has a nice resident shield.

Seemed like every week I'd turn on my computer, then get a message saying I needed to reboot because AVG just updated.  This happened often enough that after nearly a decade of using AVG, a couple months ago I switched to using Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Howard_Casto]

I'm wondering how long ago and what version of avg you guys are using.  I've never gotten a nag screen once and it's only asked me to reboot like 2 or 3 times in the 5+ year history I've had of using it.  (When it upgrades to a major revision....  like avg 11 to 2012).  2012 is a vast improvement in terms of removing bloat and catching more thing btw... I liked the old versions of avg but I LOVE 2012.


I suggest you all dl it and try it again.  I do know that some of the earlier revisions made you upgrade manually (download it from the site) and they sent up a nag screen saying that you need to upgrade.  They weren't asking you to upgrade to the pay version though, they were telling you that your revision was out of date!


I'm not saying that MSE is bad or anything, but about a month after I installed it for a test run on a few low end pcs I got the nastiest malware virus you've ever seen.  MSE didn't even pull up a warning the whole time it was infected.  I don't blame a resident shiled if it doesn't catch everything that's just impossible... but when some maleware starts monkeying with your computer and it never seems to notice, the red flag comes up for me.

[hypernova]

I got tired of all the processes that AVG uses to run.

McAfee is even worse.  That's used at work, and it makes things soooooooooooo slow.  Especially when it is updating.

[ark_ader]

+100

[Howard_Casto]

I got tired of all the processes that AVG uses to run.

McAfee is even worse.  That's used at work, and it makes things soooooooooooo slow.  Especially when it is updating.

Well AVG definately takes some system resources... it won't run on a slow computer, but it's a small price to pay for some actual resident shielding. 

MSE lets too many things slip through, McAfee and Norton, as you said, bog your computer to a crawl.  AVG is a happy medium between next to no protection and anal-retentative protection that makes your computer virtually un-usable.

[fallacy]

I just have Malwaebytes protecting computer.  Windows firewall whatever that does..
I don’t know Malwaebytes seems to do the job and does the job well.

I also came across the great little Firefox add- on that blocks any kind of pop ups that pop up blocker does not seem to know how to deal with. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/
It works so great, they need to make this standard for all browsers.

[SNAAKE]

avg is pretty good

[Richard_Nixon]

Just read this today,
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/antivirus/

Why I think software firewalls are useless.
If you have a router, you have a half decent firewall already that doesnt eat up computer resources.
Most malicous software uses port 80 to send information, this is the same port that you use for the internet, block that port and you have problems.
99.9% of malware/viruses are downloaded by you, many hide thier traffic, some don't and your firewall may pick up an outgoing connection.

Use a decent free AV program with a weekly schedule and don't worry about firewalls, unless you want to keep tabs on internet connected programs. Even then, I would only run it when I needed it.

[AtomSmasher]

I'm wondering how long ago and what version of avg you guys are using.  I've never gotten a nag screen once and it's only asked me to reboot like 2 or 3 times in the 5+ year history I've had of using it.  (When it upgrades to a major revision....  like avg 11 to 2012).  2012 is a vast improvement in terms of removing bloat and catching more thing btw... I liked the old versions of avg but I LOVE 2012.

I was using AVG as of 2 months ago, in the 6 months prior to that it asked me to reboot minutes after turning on my computer (with contant nagging reminders if I delayed it) at least a dozen times

Since I'm the computer guy at my work, several people have been telling me the same thing and were looking for alternatives since AVG was pissed them off as well, so I told them all to go to MSE.

I used to love AVG, but lately it's been a huge PITA.

[AtomSmasher]

This talk had me wondering a bit, so I did a little research on the quality of the antivirus programs..  It seems MSE is not that good at detecting threats in real-time, but is fantastic at detecting and removing them when doing a full scan.  AVG on the other hand is significantly better at detecting real-time threats, but a bit worse at detecting and removing them when doing a full scan.

I think as long as you have regular scans scheduled, then you have decent coverage with either one.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

If you've got a spare PC laying around, it's fun to play around with a full firewall implementation like this:

http://www.pfsense.org/

It's way overkill for a home setting, but it's got some neat features.

[Turambar]

As a guy who has worked in tech and still builds/works on computers, I thought I'd clue you guys into the only tool you need to take on a job when repairing a machine after a malware/virus attack:  Hiren's Boot CD (http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd).

Personally, when a rig has undergone a major attack I would rather just format it, but there are tons of useful tools on this disk for when you need to actually remove the virus/malware and get a machine back operational.  I am yet to come across a machine I could not fix with this tool.  If you check out the list of progs included, you will see why.

[saint]

RE: MSE -- ran it for a few months on my primary machine for testing, and got bit twice with viruses. System restore got me back both times (Win7) but I concluded MSE wasn't good enough yet.

[Howard_Casto]

This talk had me wondering a bit, so I did a little research on the quality of the antivirus programs..  It seems MSE is not that good at detecting threats in real-time, but is fantastic at detecting and removing them when doing a full scan.  AVG on the other hand is significantly better at detecting real-time threats, but a bit worse at detecting and removing them when doing a full scan.

I think as long as you have regular scans scheduled, then you have decent coverage with either one.

While I agree with that assessment completely, this is exactly why I reccomend AVG over MSE.  It's far less of a hassle to catch a virus in realtime and never have to deal with it then to remove one already on your system. 

Niether of them imho, is acceptable for removing a threat once you have it.  For that you use malware bytes and similar "hardcore" removal tools.  That being said, I've only gotten 3 viruses since I started using avg, and that was over 10 years ago.  So yeah, I'd rather just deal with on virus every 3 and a third years then have to constantly remove things.

AtomSmasher:

I'm sorry you are having problems, but my guess is it's an improper install and/or corrupted upgrade or something.  As I said, avg NEVER asks me to restart and I have it installed and several machines running vista, xp and win 7.  You aren't using the paid version are you?  Because that things a rip-off.  The free version is actually better because the "additional security" offered on the paid version is pointless.

I'm not saying that AVG is the best out there, but it's free and it's certainly better than MSE.... that thing just doesn't have any real-time protection... which is what you want.

[AtomSmasher]

AtomSmasher:

I'm sorry you are having problems, but my guess is it's an improper install and/or corrupted upgrade or something.  As I said, avg NEVER asks me to restart and I have it installed and several machines running vista, xp and win 7.  You aren't using the paid version are you?  Because that things a rip-off.  The free version is actually better because the "additional security" offered on the paid version is pointless.

Using the free version, and it's not a corrupted install of anything like that because it occurred on three of my computers, and on three other computers who installed their software without my help, all installed at completely different times.   It seems highly unlikely that all 4 of use would have gotten a corrupted install or upgrade unless AVG's updater was corrupting it on a large percentage of computers.

[lilshawn]

if you have a spare computer kicking around and a few NIC cards you can make yourself one of the best hardware firewalls money can buy (free).. Ive used it for years and have had no issues. and it's highly configurable.

http://www.smoothwall.org/

[ahofle]

I guess I wasn't very clear in my original post, but I'm looking for a software firewall which detects and prompts for outgoing connections by application.  I already have a hardware firewall and have no issues with incoming connections or viruses.  I mostly want it to detect and remove junkware like iTunes or applications that install themselves with other applications and then make outgoing connections. 
I will give Zone Alarm Free a shot, thanks.

[Gray_Area]

I guess I wasn't very clear in my original post, but I'm looking for a software firewall which detects and prompts for outgoing connections by application.  I already have a hardware firewall and have no issues with incoming connections or viruses.  I mostly want it to detect and remove junkware like iTunes or applications that install themselves with other applications and then make outgoing connections. 
I will give Zone Alarm Free a shot, thanks.

I thought you were quite clear.

[wizkid32]

I considered ZoneAlarm Free, but since my arcade PC will not be internet enabled, I really don't need one.