Best free firewall ?

[Harikrishnan]

Which is the best free firewall that can be used smoothly with windows 7 firewall and avast!6 free....?

[DavidR]

Most firewalls won't work with the windows 7 firewall generally it is only one firewall running/installed. The Avast Internet Security suite's firewall is meant to be compatible, but of course you are going to be using avast free and no firewall in that.

Best is also subjective, what is best for someone isn't necessarily best for all.

There are several topics already about firewalls in the General forum.

[MAG]

There is w7 firewall control by sphinx software.

It makes configuring w7 firewall (inbound and outbound) much easier.

I tried it briefly - seemed ok.

[Para-Noid]

I did have Online Armor Free until I discovered that OA was causing difficulties with downloads on my Windows 7. For now I am using the Windows firewall. I seems that MicroSoft has created a better firewall.  

I must correct myself DavidR is so right outbound protection is a must anymore. And after further research it wasn't OA Free that caused the problem. I was something entirely different. I'm going back to OA Free.

[DBone]

If you are behind a router firewall, then the W7 firewall is more then enough. If you aren't behind a router, then just set the W7 firewall to "public" and you're good to go. Don't waste time and resources on complicate 3rd party firewalls.

[DavidR]

Whilst the win7 firewall is better than previous incarnations of the windows firewall, the outbound protection is disabled by default, that should be enabled.

Any malware that manages to get past your defences will have free reign to connect to the internet (and not all malware comes from the internet) to either download more of the same, pass your personal data (sensitive or otherwise, user names, passwords, keylogger retrieved data, etc.) or open a backdoor to your computer, so I believe outbound protection is essential.

[pacesetter]

I use privatefirewall 7.0 from privacyware.com.  free, easy to use, learning mode, etc.
I have had no problems with integration or while running avast.

As you know results may vary depending on computer, user etc, but I have this set-up on 5 PCs and 2 laptops using XP, Vista and Win 7 with no problems anywhere.

[Raveen Kool]

Windows firewall.....

Windows firewall in windows vista and win 7 are stronger....

[DavidR]

Strong doesn't cut it if the user can't set it up as on their own, it is rules based and the user has to have some general firewall knowledge to set the rules and as I mentioned enable outbound protection.

[rdmaloyjr]

Strong doesn't cut it if the user can't set it up as on their own, it is rules based and the user has to have some general firewall knowledge to set the rules and as I mentioned enable outbound protection.

This is a good recommendation for ZoneAlarm, it's easy to use and strong.

[DavidR]

Sorry I don't use the words easy to use and Strong in relation to Zone Alarm in the same sentence.

I personally don't feel it is that strong, easy to use is a somewhat subjective term as to strengthen it up I feel you have to stray away from the default low sensitivity settings.

I left ZA many, many years ago when it was very user friendly hardly a peep out of it at all and it did nothing about Blaster, etc. etc. That really is a long time ago and I have never forgotten that or been tempted back. On the other hand Outpost 1.0 free and later Outpost Firewall Pro versions have never let me down and it is relatively easy to use.

[Para-Noid]

Correct me if I am wrong. But hasn't Zone Alarm caused and/or created conflicts with avast!? 

[Lisandro]

Correct me if I am wrong. But hasn't Zone Alarm caused and/or created conflicts with avast!? 

Yeah, they had their bad times together in the past...

[Asyn]

Correct me if I am wrong. But hasn't Zone Alarm caused and/or created conflicts with avast!? 

You're right.
And it's still no dream team, imo.

[Para-Noid]

Strong doesn't cut it if the user can't set it up as on their own, it is rules based and the user has to have some general firewall knowledge to set the rules and as I mentioned enable outbound protection.

This is a good recommendation for ZoneAlarm, it's easy to use and strong.

Please read posts 11, 12 and 13.