Where to Find a Firewall at No Cost

Where to Find a Firewall for No Cost

Is it Still Possible to Find a Firewall at Zero Cost?

Firewalls help to control how your computer exchanges data with other computers on the Internet or over a LAN. They protect against malicious hacks and obnoxious popups. Every desktop computer and notebook computer should have firewall protection installed.

Truly "free" firewalls seem to have all but disappeared.

In October 2005, Symantec acquired SyGate which offered a popular and effective free firewall, and promptly discontinued it.

Then it was announced that Kerio Personal Firewall was due to be discontinued on December 30 2005.

One small consolation. The newest versions of Windows XP have a "free" firewall built right into the operating system.

For those who don't have Windows XP with its built-in firewall.... here some options:

SmoothWall Express Open source firewall works with Linux OS. "... intended for use by anyone from a home user to a systems administrator. It can run on almost any PC from a 486 upwards, which becomes a dedicated firewall appliance (the SmoothWall box). Apart from the PC, all that is required is an Internet connection and some simple networking equipment to connect the SmoothWall firewall to the rest of your local, private network."

Safety.Net 3.61 "... offers Internet security, content security and advanced Internet firewall protection for all your LAN computers, and trust controls to block unwanted or harmful applications from accessing the network. You can define granular user or computer specific access controls based on site, content, PICS ratings and time of day. You can monitor connection level network activity round-the-clock and view detailed reports to analyze traffic and usage patterns."

R-Firewall "Free firewall comparable with commercial firewalls... an effective and easy-to-use solution to secure your on-line activity. It protects a computer connected to a local network and/or to the Internet against any intrusions, attacks, trojans, spyware, and other external and internal threats. R-Firewall also filters out inappropriate Internet pages content and blocks dangerous active components you may get while browsing over the Internet or receiving e-mail massages. Automatic configuration during setup allows you securely surf the Internet right after the software installation. Mobile users can create multiple and easily switchable configurations for specific network environments (Internet surfing at home, office local networks, or public Wi-Fi spots)."

Primedius Firewall Lite

SensiveGuard "... checks every inbound and outbound network access for policy compliance, suspends and warns on every access in real-time that is not allowed or denied explicitly by policies. Security policies can be set regarding program identities, network protocols, and remote network address. Network address can be specified in a group (network zone). Three address groups are created by default: any-remote group, local-network group, and the Internet group. Customer address group can be created to include any IP addresses or subnets."

Free for a Year! Trustix™ Enterprise Firewall "... protects assets and business transactions by ensuring fast, secure connections with the Internet and networks. It enables fast, controlled connectivity, providing strong protection against unwanted intrusion without slowing the flow of approved traffic. Specifically designed to protect corporate networks and intranets, Trustix Enterprise Firewall is the only WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) firewall in the world. A fully-featured packet-filtering router, Trustix Enterprise Firewall has advanced capabilities including the intuitive Xsentry graphical user interface (GUI) for visualizing and editing the firewall policy and behaviour."

Zone Labs "... The only one around that has been proven to protect against all current attacks is Zone Alarm Safety.Net 3.61 offers Internet security, content security and advanced Internet firewall protection for all your LAN computers, and trust controls to block unwanted or harmful applications from accessing the network. You can define granular user or computer specific access controls based on site, content, PICS ratings and time of day. You can monitor connection level network activity round-the-clock and view detailed reports to analyze traffic and usage patterns.from Zone Labs. Best of all its free for personal use. Zone Alarm: The most secure software firewall is totally free for personal use - easy to set up yet very powerful. It can even scan your email for trojan horses..."

One word of caution: Zone Labs has said they will no longer continue to fix a malfunction that is found in their free version.

The reason? The say that the problem is not in their free firewall, it is in a security problem in Windows shell32.dll file.

Apparently when the ShellExecute is activated and set to a url, the browser is prompted to search for the website in question, However, most times the ZoneAlarm is given permission to freely access the web pages without the users permission.

That browser could then gain access to a malicious web page, and cause confidential information, such as passwords, usernames to redirect to a more trusted web page.

The owners of Zone Labs have stated that this vulnerability can be remedied, and also protected against by chosing to use one of their paid products.

Omniquad

There are many sources of free "trial versions" of firewalls. To locate them, go to Google.com and search on "free firewalls ".