New Firewall Time...

Been away from here for a while but have been reading posts in the last week or so on firewalls.

Im in the market for a new firewall. Heres the deal had to get a new computer for my mom. See was running win98 and I had her all set up with kerio 2.15. Course now its winxp and figured it would be good to start fresh since 2.15 is not being developed any longer.

Liked what I was hearing about outpost and just about bite the bullit until all the bad reviews of the new version. Now im not to sure.

I liked the ability in 2.15 to edit rules, i felt i understood what was going on, even though im not a firewall guru.

I like LNS, but rule creation seems over my head and for some reason I just dont feel like I know whats going on and whether or not ive done it right. Maybe cause I just havent worked on it like i have with kerio 2.15

Even though zonealarm seems like a nice firewall, i havent tested it in awhile and the last version i had seemed bloated. and rule editing didnt exist in it.

Kerio 4..?? about a year ago heard to stay away from it.. now i see its been bought by sunbelt..

So Im looking for some knowledge and guidence in choosing a new firewall. What do you recommened. I know that there is not a perfect firewall but..
Im basically looking at

1. Ability to customize rules while at the same time offer some hand holding, In case something isnt set up right.

2. No bloatware

3. Since mom will have it on her machine i want it to lock down her computer from everything bad there is, but not cause her grief.

4. as of right now im considering in no particular order...Outpost, LNS, Kerio 4,

Thanks for the help
Phazor

 

I think Kerio 4 might be the way to go, and the price is right, I think they still have the $14.95 offer going. However, there is a slight bit of 'bloat' compared to the older Kerio 2 (Kerio 4 uses about 26mb ram here compared to Kerio 2's 6mb). Yet still, it's pretty good all around and would seem to fit your needs..