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How necessary is a software firewall?

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Carol Haynes:
Is is a lot less intrusive now as they have added automatic rules for well known applications.

mouser:
carol points out something else very important that i overlooked.
a key thing that a good firewall (like agnitum outpost) can do is keep detailed logs of outgoing and incoming communication, which can really help when trying to figure out the cause of a problem, or the identify the source of some trouble.

it's all fine and well to be protected, but sometimes there is a great value in being able to see when something fishy is happening and be able to track down the source, if only to reassure yourself that it's harmless.

noth(a)nk.you:
I just like the [sense of] privacy from my ZoneAlarm--that a program has to go through me to get access to the outside.  Most of the time, I'm not so sure that I want things to have access, so they are blocked.

Another configuration option I like in ZoneAlarm is the ability to "kill" processes.  That is, whenever an .exe is found running, it is immediately stopped.  I haven't used this in a while, but I recall that it was quite useful when I did.

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