Looking for some Firewall suggestions

Presently, I use Zone Alarm free. After going to a few of the more thorough leak test sites, I am beginning to wonder if this program gives me enough protection.

However, I have a significant problem in that I am not a computer savvy user like many others in this forum. When I ran a trial of Outpost Pro, it drove me nuts and had me in a constant state of panic. I then switched to Zone Alarm Free (ZAF) and have been much more relaxed.

So I need a firewall that makes most of the decisions for me. That's why I use ZAF. I also like the fact that it is free However, I would be willing to pay for better protection, so long as the program was easy enough for a novice to use.

With all of this in mind, should I stick with ZAF or is their a better program out there that will also meet my criteria for being novice friendly?

 

I'm also a ZAF-user and a newbie and I was also on the verge of madness after installing and using Outpost.
ZAF is also disturbing in the beginning, because every application needs to be accepted by ZAF and Outpost does the same thing, but in a different and more difficult way, because Outpost is a rule-based firewall, while ZAF is an application-based firewall and these firewalls are easier for less-knowledgeable users.
ZoneAlarm Pro might be a solution for you and is better than ZoneAlarm Free.

You might get suggestions for other application-based firewalls, just watch your thread for awhile.

 

I was just getting ready to post a new thread on this same topic so I am just going to add it here:

I have always used Zone Alarm free and love it. However I am using older versions(5.0 I think) and from what I have read on these forums and elsewhere the newer free versions have had less features and seem to be less recommended. I have a new laptop and usually the first thing I would do is download and install ZA free but now I am considering trying something else. Which one is the question? I am not a computer expert(pretty obvious huh?) and although I feel I am learning a lot here and elsewhere I am not sure if I am ready to try some of these other firewalls even though they may be better. I want to experiment with something else but what mainly concerns me is that I've read in threads that often firewalls are hard to remove/uninstall. Supposedly that is true of ZA free also but I have never had to do it so I don't know. Are any of the free firewalls both better on security than ZA free and also easy to remove if it doesn't go well? Or for someone like me is ZA free still likely the best choice?

Thanks.

roark37

 

ZAF & AppDefend works very well for Me.

 

id stick with ZA free if ease-of-use is a necessity.

 

I prefer Kerio free over ZA, more options and the nice thing there is application execution control as well. If u want, u can turn off this extra component.
Kerio is much better than ZA in my opinion. However I have not doen leak tests on both.
I wished I could use Jetico but it,s configurationis too difficult and time consuming, no way.... may be next version if ever it comes.
BTW, anybosy can tell about Tiny.

 

The only feature that was removed in ZA (free) in v6 is the pass-lock feature which not many people using the free version use to begin with. Other than that all other features have remained untouched and the free ZA in v6.5 may even contain a new feature. I think its Gamer's mode but I am not sure since I am not beta testing the free ZA 6.5.