PC Tools Firewall discontinued. Looking for replacement.

Indianatone · 12 Oct 2012

PC Tools Firewall discontinued. Looking for replacement.
Hi,
Over the years I have used a bunch of firewalls including Zone Alarm and Comodo. Still use the Comodo firewall on a couple of DVR PC's that are used for home theatre stuff only and streaming Netflix. I settled on PC Tools free firewall as it did everything I needed and it was easy to use and configure. However it has been discontinued after PC Tools was swallowed by Symantec and they would be pleased to offer me a security suite for $55 per annum per machine. I use Avast anti virus, Malwarebytes and Spybot so don't want this at any cost even free. Can anyone suggest a good free firewall and provide a tutorial if needed ? Not sure if I want to use Comodo as it is hard to get rid of. I am fine with it on a DVR as no one is playing games or surfing websites on those 2 PC's. Free is good as I have just gone onto disability due to heart issues.
Thanks in advance
Tony.

marsmimar · 12 Oct 2012

Tony, I've been experimenting with TinyWall for a couple of weeks now. It seems to work great. And it's free.

TinyWall - A free, lightweight and non-intrusive firewall

alikhan · 12 Oct 2012

Indianatone said:

PC Tools Firewall discontinued. Looking for replacement.
Hi,
Over the years I have used a bunch of firewalls including Zone Alarm and Comodo. Still use the Comodo firewall on a couple of DVR PC's that are used for home theatre stuff only and streaming Netflix. I settled on PC Tools free firewall as it did everything I needed and it was easy to use and configure. However it has been discontinued after PC Tools was swallowed by Symantec and they would be pleased to offer me a security suite for $55 per annum per machine. I use Avast anti virus, Malwarebytes and Spybot so don't want this at any cost even free. Can anyone suggest a good free firewall and provide a tutorial if needed ? Not sure if I want to use Comodo as it is hard to get rid of. I am fine with it on a DVR as no one is playing games or surfing websites on those 2 PC's. Free is good as I have just gone onto disability due to heart issues.
Thanks in advance
Tony.

Hello ;

Zone alarm basic firewall is amongst the most downloaded and widely used FREE firewall software available.it is very friendly with computer resources even while blocking attacks.
If you are novice you can leave all the settings to their standard values, and the computer would still be safe, as together with a powerful av software ,zone alarm will be able to block basically every single malicious file.

Here's the link - Download ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 10.2.081.000 Free - A basic inbound and outbound firewall application - Softpedia

Hope this helps :)

Borg 386 · 13 Oct 2012

In the past Zone Alarm has had conflicts with Windows 7. If they have resolved this recently, I do not know.

You may wish to consider using Windows own firewall. This article has several links at the bottom pertaining to Windows Firewall:

Windows Firewall - Add or Remove an Exception

Indianatone · 13 Oct 2012

Borg 386 said:

In the past Zone Alarm has had conflicts with Windows 7. If they have resolved this recently, I do not know.

You may wish to consider using Windows own firewall. This article has several links at the bottom pertaining to Windows Firewall:

Windows Firewall - Add or Remove an Exception

That is why I have unconsciously ruled out Zone Alarm, caused me hell and all grief in the past with blue screens and denying access to certain computers and not others and blocking websites and internet access on machines. (Usually the wife's machine:)).
I'll give it a try on a virtual machine this weekend. Is the windows firewall good enough?

Layback Bear · 13 Oct 2012

I use Windows 7 built in Firewall on two computers and have not problems.

Alejandro85 · 13 Oct 2012

The easiest thing is trying the Windows Firewall. I'm using it and it works OK for most things, however it has some important shortcomings in some aspects and if you're technically skilled it might annoy you. I like the extensive configuration options in the advanced panel (the basic control panel applet is quite incomplete). Maybe it's worth a try at least.
I also tried ZoneAlarm but discarded it since the configuration options were too few and can barely setup rules.
Softperfect personal firewall is good, but lack the "filter by program" option, which I consider essential, but with good popup messages on unwanted connections.
Not tried anything else so far.

marsmimar said:

Tony, I've been experimenting with TinyWall for a couple of weeks now. It seems to work great. And it's free.

TinyWall - A free, lightweight and non-intrusive firewall

TinyWall is NOT a firewall. It's just a front end for managing Windows firewall with a nicer interface.

marsmimar · 13 Oct 2012

marsmimar said:

Tony, I've been experimenting with TinyWall for a couple of weeks now. It seems to work great. And it's free.

TinyWall - A free, lightweight and non-intrusive firewall

TinyWall is NOT a firewall. It's just a front end for managing Windows firewall with a nicer interface.

You're absolutely correct Alejandro. I failed to make that clear.

Thanks for the clarification.

autechs · 13 Oct 2012

Hey,

I agree with Alejandro, Windows firewall is actually pretty good :) I used to use Zonealarm a long time ago, but due to conflictions with Kaspersky Anti-Virus I stopped using it and have never looked back.

Indianatone · 15 Oct 2012

OK, I bit the bullet and removed PC tools from my 3 PC's on my desk. That was 3 versions of 7 on one machine, 2 versions of 7 on another and 1 version on my oldest machine. All of them are now just running the windows firewall. I had a look in the advanced features and to be honest never knew the windows 7 firewall was so good. So far so good.
Thanks Borg 386, Layback Bear, Alejandro85 and marsmimar.