I think Sygate Technoligies may have given us thin wallet users the best free firewall protection yet with their free lite version of Personal Firewall -home/small business edition.

Free for home personal use and cheap for small business registration, this one has features Microsoft and another joint venture partner say they will come out with in a few years.

Won't scare away the inexperienced computer user either, because this one actually is easy to use and maintain despite it's vast feature list.

Maintains logs on applications (blocked and allowed access to net in and out).
Security log
Connection log with lots of data on local host (your system) and remote host connections, including IP address of remote host and port used, start stop connect date/time and more.
Data Packet log tracks data in-out and more info.

real time graphs display inbound / outbound traffic and if allowed or blocked and attack graph. below tha graphs, switchable display of applications running that are associated with network activity and showing real time connection data and if allowed in/out and with both host data.

Right click a displayed entry on real time chart or a log entry and you can back trace a remote hosts IP and gain most times info on their service provider like country, state, street address, phone numbers, URL's for reporting misuse (COOL) and more

Get it here for free:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and your welcome B^)

[EDIT 2/18/07]
Forget this one - Sygate got bought out by symantec (Norton). Guess they thought it was too good of a product to be given away, so no longer available. It was a good product, but I won't have anything of Symantec's on my machine ever!

Check out the free one on the next posting instead.

Here is another Firewall program I've been testing and installing on customers systems that need a firewall but don't know anything about them.

http://www.comodo.com

A free version is available for download along with other products they produce.

Very user friendly and has great features for novice and advanced user alike.

. Built in data base of known good-legitimate Windows, and popular software modules that will access internet/network connections.
. Learns new ones automatically.
. Monitors modules and applications for changes and hi-jacking.
. Alert pop-up dialog window gives detailed info on application or module attempting to access internet/network (best I've seen), with links to additional info and help.

Visit their site for more information and feature list of this great product.

I get an error page not found on the first link and it sends me to symantec.com.

THANKS for the freebees !

PEACE

Sygate Acquired by Symantec

On October 10, 2005 Symantec Corporation acquired Sygate Technologies

.........................And best of all you can only use Symantec wesite via IE!

So much for real internet security

Here's another freebe I recommend for Anti-Virus protection.

Avira AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic.

http://www.free-av.de/

I have used it with great success for a few years now and it's the first thing I run on any PC I'm repairing, even if the owner has made the mistake of paying for Norton or McCaffe.

This one has found hundreds of worms and trojans on systems that had Norton or some other AV application installed that reported no infections.

Check it out if you're suspicious of your current AV program or tired of paying yearly for it.

Mhz.

Hey Megahurts you know of any GOOD free firewalls that really work ?

PEACE

I have had absolutely no, nada, zip zero problems with a firewall for years using my router. Only firewall software running is the built in one from XP pro (sp2).

THANKS texas88 !!!! That is great to know. One less program running.

PEACE

And with two grandkids on computers, I never really have to worry about critters bitting their computers, just an occasional tool bar they clicked on with out knowing.

I agree Tom, some environments for systems suffer more with too many powerful utilities at the disposal of users that don't know what they could damage by using them. Nothings perfect, as Uncle Bill has demonstrated to us, and yet sold it to us again... lol.

But I still recommend 'Comodo Firewall' for those that do want or need to have the extra protection. The newest version has gotten even better about the way it monitors every application and service launches and learns with little inputs from you, what stuff is normal for your system.
If any service or application or kernel module does anything out of the ordinary, it alerts you and gives a very informative reason why this alert could be something bad happening, or to confirm with you if you know for sure something you initiated is something you do want done (ie.. installing a new application that is trying to create a new folder or put a file in a system folder.).

If 'Comodo' doesn't recognize an action or process trying to do something, it offers several web based information options that could provide info that you can use to determine if something bad is trying to sneak past you.

It guards your 'windows system' files and folders from changes or hi-jacking and can trace back and show you what is trying to do it and if 'Comodo' knows it is something usually safe or known/unknown risk.

I really can't type enough here that would do justice to how easy,-yet intelligently 'Comodo' guards your system.

And really,,,, I don't work for them lol,, just very happy with the product as are many of my customers after getting their PC fixed, find out how much better they are protected than before freely.

Only downside to 'Comodo' that I can complain about is that it won't work on Win98/ME operating systems, because there are fewer and fewer options for those old systems and they really need something as good as it is.

My 11 cents on that topic...
Mhz.

ps.
BTW, Tom or whoever did the work, I noticed the forum is working better and some changes made.. Nice!!

One more item to mention about firewalls, or more specifically, 'WinXP's firewall,,, It only provides mediocre protection against incoming network traffic and almost nothing about any outgoing traffic unless you're very good at configuring 'TCP/IP Filtering'.

The default "exception" settings also leave your system open on a bunch of protocols that you are probably not using or needing. I still highly recommend any 3rd party firewall to be installed than relying on XP's built in one, and COMODO PRO is probably the best FREE one available, so far.

Another FREE All-Windows-OS tool I use a lot and recommend is CodeStuff's "Starter" Utility. This is actually 3 tools in one (for NT-XP OS's, 2 tools for 98-ME OS's).

Once installed and run, you will see either 2 or 3 tabs at the top of the central window. Here is what each tab (or tool) does:

1st Tab: Startups [all windows OS's]
- This tool is like running the "msconfig" utility to see and enable/disable what runs or loads at boot-up, but better. It will show almost all 'config' and 'registry' files entries that instruct Windows to execute, run or launch files at boot-up.
Some infectious applications can be spotted and disabled here, but some infections won't show up here.
Check or Un-check any entries that you want to enable or disable to improve boot-up times and improve system performance.
! ! ! Some Hardware Drivers show up here, Don't disable unless you have a reason to. ! ! !

2nd Tab: Processes [all windows OS's]
- This tool is like the "Processes" utility tab in XP's "Task Manager" Utility, and again, only better.
This version shows a lot more info about each process running than the Windows-Process-viewer, scroll the window to the right to see all the info columns.
Right-Click on a 'Process' to get the 'Options-Menu' and you can choose 'Terminate' to shut-down that process or one of the other options listed.

3rd Tab: Services [NT or higher only]
- This tool is like the XP "Services-Viewer-Utility" and Yes, Better also.
Win98-ME OS's don't implement 'Services', so this Tab won't appear when running them.
Again, scrolling to the right will reveal more info columns. Right-Click a 'Service' to get 'Options-Menu' options available for that service. You can quickly Stop,Start,Pause,Resume,Restart eligible services or change a services "Startup Type" setting with a couple of mouse clicks.

Common Features for All Tabs:
- Single Left-Click any 'Startup', 'Process' or 'Service' Item and additional information contained in each legitimate entry about the developer will be displayed in the bottom window.

* Any 'Startups' or 'Processes' Item that doesn't show a 'Display Name' and/or information in the Bottom Window, Should be considered HIGHLY SUSPECT and be investigated further to determine if a software infection! *

Right-Clicking on any item in any tab or Left-Clicking any item will present you with various options that can be applied to that item either up in the 'Tool-Bar' or the pop-up-menu. Right-Clicking will have more choices than the tool-bar, like opening the directory where the item resides on your H.D.D. or doing many different Internet Searches about that item to learn more about it. (very cool feature).

This Tool has many configuration options to customize it to your taste also.

As always, it's a good idea to create a restore point and/or save settings before making any changes you are not sure of. Thankfully, this tool allows you to research any item pretty throughly to help with deciding if you want to change your 'Startups' or 'Services' settings.

Get this Tool for FREE at:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/Starter.shtml

or

http://codestuff.mirrorz.com/

or email me and I'll send it to you.

Hope you all find this as useful as I do, Mhz.