best firewall?

hey,
i was wondering what everyones favorite firewall was and why? i'm looking for something fast, with a nice interface, and good. i was using mcafee for awhile, but its painfully slow at starting up (with that security center and everything), but form then on its nice, it shows who you are connected to, your bandwidth, etc

so whats everyones favorite? free is always nice

 

Here's a link. This has been discussed a lot, so you should find a wealth of info if you dig - Many more recent than this one:

Which firewall is best ?

PP

 

i dont have an opinion on which is BEST, but I dislike the interfaces of McAfee, Norton, and Zone Alarm, so I use Kerio Personal Firewal Free Edition.

it feels a little more advanced to me, and it lets you know just about everything thats going on with your computer. However, if you are more of a novice user (wouldnt be sure which processes to block or allow) I would still recommend Zone Alarm.

 

Zone Alarm. Like the link suggested: it might by basic, but I found that being a "newbie" it taught me alot. Also, it seems there are more advanced features, but I keep it simple. It took a minute when I first started (so many questions), but once I understood what it was asking and why - I was very happy with it.

 

I perfer Kerio to ZA. More friendly, I think. I have PC-cillin security (AV and FW together) and really like this one too.

Strange1

 

yeah, i installed kerio, thanks guys, im not too picky, i just want one that will log attacks, etc.

 

I listen to alot of computer talk radio, and regarding software firewalls, they recommend either Zone Alarm or Sygate. I like Zone Alarm myself. Though I wanted to like Sygate and installed it twice both times I didn't like the interface. You asked about logs. Zone Alarm's Menu (on the left side if you use it) contains six sections, one is called Alerts and Logs. It contains an easy-to-read log, like what IP address the port scans came from, date/time of each scans, etc.

 

Personally I really like sygate personal firewall (i haven't used pro.) It worked really well and helped me solve a lot of problems. However, when i upgraded to version 5.6 from version 5.5 I started getting some problems that basically made it impossible for me to use 5.6 any more. I recommend sygate personal firewall only if you're using version 5.5. To download 5.5 go to the link in this forum on sygates site. http://forums.sygate.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12072. I think the link works.