Be Excellent To Each Other

I've finally bought a new PC and would like something better to protect me than the default Windows Firewall. Antivirus is already covered by Avast, so all I'm looking for is a decent free firewall so I cover all my bases.

I use Sunbelt Personal Firewall (used to be Kerio). It works as well as you could expect, and I like the way it spews dialogs at you asking for permission whenever an application accesses the internet, or starts another application. You can disable this, if you don't like it.

Comodo Personal Firewall is similar to that too - I've got that running on my main PC. Never really had any problems but it's the computer I use for downloading stuff so I like the extra protection. It also notifies you if a process wants to change a file, access another process and other bits - if you're installing something though, you can switch it to installation mode where it'll stop nagging till you're done.

Zone alarm used to be my firewall of choice but I've not used it for ages (no point with the router).

A router won't stop unwanted outgoing communication though.

An unattended one, at least. You should be able to instruct it to block specific ports if you want. (I think.)

Yeah it's basically on full lockdown apart from one I've opened to use for FTP etc

If you have a router then you've already got a decent firewall. I don't bother with a software one.

I use both, but then I have always liked the belt and braces approach.

The software one is just the windows one.

A software router can be a useful way to stop software "phoning home".

I don't have any extraterrestrials in my computer, so I'm ok.