FireWall

[jes]

Do you think that Outpost is better than ZoneAlarm?

[Budfred]

I am not familiar with Outpost, but I can tell you that the retail version of ZoneAlarm is not worth the money and their customer/technical support is some of the most pathetic I have ever dealt with. If you use it, go with the free version.

[jes]

What do think is the best firwall for the money you pay for it?

[mjc]

Good firewalls...

ZAF

Better Firewalls

Outpost
Sygate
Kerio
Tiny (now different than Kerio...)

Many of them are free for personal use. But I would go with Kerio or Outpost.

[jes]

What do you mean by good and better? Intrusion protection? User friendlyness? Free? Easy setup? All of the above? What do you like about Sygate or any of the others in the "better" list that you don't like in ZoneAlarm?

[Budfred]

I think they are all available in free versions. As I have said, ZA has some of the worst customer service I have ever seen, but it is ok as a free firewall. If you look around the forums at problems people have had with networking, ZA often seems to be at the root of it. This may be because it is one of the more well known and used or it may be due to some inherent weakness. I haven't seen similar complaints about any of the others. Someone recently said Kerio is small and effective, so it is the one I will probably try next.

The most important thing for me in a firewall is that it screen going in and out.

[mjc]

ZAF is good...almost a set and forget, but it is getting bloated and buggy. Few configuration options availbe...more in the pay versions, but support stinks and they are still prone to some of the same bugs. If it works right on your system it offers wonderful protection, just on some systems it is a bear to get working.

Sygate, Kerio, Outpost...all are better in that they allow you to specify rules about what and how to block things..no that doesn't necessarily make them easier to use, often just the opposite. But it does give you, the user, much more control over things than ZAF. Also, there are some things that they can do that you just can't, unless you use a pay version of ZA...like block by IP address, specify which protocol to block and several other items (like ease of configuring local networks...ZAF can drive one batty trying to do that). And the final thing that makes them better in my book...less bloated.

[jes]

I have uninstalled ZoneAlarm and installed Sygate. At this point, I think that a new firewall is exciting (what a computer geek!). My system was having problems before this. I think ZoneAlarm had something to do with it.