nvm, not freeware.

nvm, not freeware.

are you sure, on their page http://www.pctools.com/firewall/ it says "Best of all it’s FREE. No catches, limitations or time-limits."

i've not installed it yet - will try later.

thanks, iphigenie, ghostwall also looks like it might be enough for the job, but i'll have to try that later also.

perhaps it means to simply register, i.e. provide details of yourself but it doesn't require any other payment???

ghostwall was a little to minimal for my liking.

at the moment i've got 'PC Tools Firewall Plus' installed. so far, i like it.

it asks me if a program can connect, yes/no and remember. seems to work perfectly well.

you do have to register with a name and a genuine email so that you can receive the key that allows it to run after 30 days trial. other than that it's all free.

i've not tried doing anything advanced with it. well, when i say advanced i simply mean using shared folders on my computers - so i don't know if i'll have to manually change a few settings for that to work.

Even if outdated, I still find the old Sygate Personal Firewall Ok for basic use.
goto http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160

Also, sharing files and printers works OK.

The upgraded version of this firewall exists as part of V-com SystemSuite.  Unfortunately, this updated FW doesn't like at all the most recent version of CA Antivirus, so I had to find another solution. SPF was this solution.

Maybe there really are people who can stay out of trouble for ever even though they are running a free firewall. Maybe. I know I would have had a hole lot more of troubles if I gone the free way. But I really think there is no such thing as a free meal. Somehow you are going to pay in the end. And I have never for a moment been sorry that I paid for Outpost PRO - it is THE firewall for a personel computer at home. I started with version 2.5 and is now using 4.0

Any problems with Outpost usually comes from the setup you have chosen. If you avoid the most strict settings, you will ALMOST never be troubled with this firewall. You will hardly know it is there, until you try to run some poison.

Outpost runs in perfect harmony with Eset NOD32 Antivirus.

Outpost PRO 4, and NOD32 2.7 :   

If you're not doing strict outbound filtering, there's not much point in running a personal firewall ...

Define "strict" 

I am running a strict setup, but the next guy doesn't have to, does he. But you are making an important point, a point that is to be taken seriously: There is no such thing as a free meal - and there is (for all I can see) no such thing as a free well protecting firewall that will never demand your attention and time.

Sorry if my first post gave any other impression

The reason you can't find a "pure firewall" much anymore is simple. Reviewers.

To me, pure firewall means state aware packet filtering - purely about traffic - i.e. it will look at source and destination IPs, protocol and ports use that to make a decision whether to let the traffic go through or not, in a chain or rules (that's what ghostwall is. That's what the old kerio and tiny used to be). Using a "pure firewall" on very restrictive rules should mean that no surprise traffic can get in or out. Of course a clever virus, or spyware, or a trojan, if it gets itself installed on the machine, can still hijack another software which is known to be usually trusted to get out. And that's normal, the firewall still did its job, watch the integrity of the network, another tool or two should watch the integrity of the system.

But reviewers and "obsessive" security power users started saying a firewall had failed if it didn't catch a browser hijacker, or a trojan... And the list of breaches a firewall is expected to catch keeps growing, year after year. They're doing the same to spyware detectors and virus scanners, too.

Whereas earlier people would have had a "pure" firewall, a virus scanner, maybe a trojan protection or intrusion detection and a spyware tool, now people tend to have a firewall that also does trojan and malware, a virus scanner that also does trojans and malware and more and more some virtualisation, a registry protection tool which also does a bit of firewall... All overlapping in features more and more. No wonder they conflict.

In a way I want several small tools that do their distinct job very well. I don't want 4 tools that are fighting to steal each other's job.

Edit: i did a quick search and you will find out that any review of firewalls nowadays centers on non-firewall features such as leak tests. That's what most firewall makers center their efforts on nowadays, making sure their system detect the leak tests, sometimes by cheats, but mostly by watching, scanning and analysing everything that happens between executables on the PC. This is quite slowing on the PC, in the end. And in a "one in all" product you can't turn off the anti-hijack tools on their own when you want, for example, to play a game.

Malware detection is something antivirus products should detect, though, in my opinion. They're already inspecting executables and doing heuristics... and there aren't that many "viruses" around anymore, it's another kind of malware nowadays.

And most people will be wanting proactive defense (instead of scanning *after* the damage) is done, this requires some drivers and hooking to be efficient; might as well protect some registry keys and system services to make life harder for malware too.

That said, there is a tendency of too much functionality in each product. I don't think firewall capability belongs in an antivirus app, and full system sandboxing doesn't fit with either AV or FW software.

Wilders forum might have the answer: It seems pc tools default set up blocks netbios. You need to allow the following (blocked by default), if possible only for known IPs. Of course if your broadband and wireless gateway both keep your internal networked closed (i.e. proper wifi security and no ip forwarding from the net) then you don't have to worry.

Anyway the 2 default rules to release seem to be

1) Block winNuke (which blocks filesharing)
2) Stop netBIOS

see here http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=160868&page=2

You need a firewall somewhere to protect your machines against the external network. It really doesn't need to be on the machine, but there needs to be a protection. Considering the amount of port and vulnerability scanning that goes on the net all the time, and the amount of open ports etc. by default on the average windows machine, i think having a firewall *somewhere* that prevents casual access to ports on the machines to be a basic need.

It can be at the entrance to the network, on a corporate firewall or a simple broadband router, but if the machine is connected via modem then it needs to be on the machine. As a matter of fact it's better at the network entrance, not on the machine itself, so the traffic never reaches the machine.

Once you have such protection in place, then you need the second level of protection, which is from threats that originate within the network. You don't need a "network" firewall on each machine but unless you have very very savvy users you do need a certain amount of trojan/malware protection, because alas there's nothing we can install in people's heads to make them stop opening an attachment that says "i have always secretly loved you" or "naked pics of the boss inside" or click on a banner that says "free animated smilies, click here" or "test your pc's security now". That protection is nowadays either added to virus scanners or to tools called "personal firewalls" or "internet security", when really it fits in none of those labels.

Even the tech savvy crowd can fall for it, obviously it would need to be something more clever like spoofing the tortoise svn page

thanks for looking into the file sharing side of things, iphigenie.

i'd tried setting up a few rules inside 'pc tools firewall plus' using the tcp and udp ports specified by microsoft but it made not one jot of difference. i shall try your recommendations later what i get chance as they sound very likely to work.

i've tried jetico - no good. and i think i may have tried looknstop - can't really remember. we've covered a lot of this ground before elsewhere on the forum and i think i'm right in thinking that these two programs were tried back then.

at the moment zone alarm is back on - everything works and it's pretty simple to get working if only it wouldn't crash.

but i'm still going to give pc tools firewall plus another shot - just to see if the file sharing will work.

zone alarm for all it's faults still seems about the easiest to use - for what i need anyway - outbound blocking on stuff just so i have an idea of what's going on with my machine.

@Curt, i've tried a few things to try and find how outpost can still be there even though i successfully uninstalled it - outpost.exe isn't running so i assume the debris is elsewhere.