[BlackBlade]

Part II

Firewall Review:

1. Outpost Firewall Pro
   Score:765
   This firewall did amazingly well in all of my tests. The average ports were blocked and secured, and almost all malicious connections I tried were disabled by the firewall. The reason why this firewall got marked off was because I was able to get one connection through when I changed my IP address, however after about two minutes the firewall locked me out. It had adapted and black-listed the new IP that I tried to use. The same thing happened when I tried to perform a “self attack” to test the outgoing protection. It allowed the first few tries, then black-listed its own IP (ironic?) and would not allow more connections to itself. However, all normal internet traffic was not bothered at all. Outpost is my #1 pick, but its price will keep some people from picking it up. For those people, keep reading.
2. Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0
   Score: 728
   In second place, is Comodo Firewall Pro. This free firewall outperformed some of the other paid-for options that I tested, and it truly is one great product. Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0, besides being great at stopping my attacks, also came with a system called “Defense +” which monitors core system files and alerts users when someone (or something) tries to change these files. This system can really be helpful when protecting yourself from Trojans and worms. Depending on your settings, the warning boxes can be very annoying, thus Comodo lost some points. However, I applaud its effort to lock me out and keep the testing computer secure. It's UI is nice and its install walkes you through setting up all of its advanced features. And thats another thing, this firewall has features found only on higher-end firewalls, but Comodo is free! This program is defiantly worth a look.
3. ZoneAlarm Free Firewall.
   Score: 690
   Scoring at #3 is another free firewall. From this point on, the competition gets real competitive. ZoneAlarm's Free Firewall is one of the most popular free firewalls out there, and it deserves its title. It did a suburb job at blocking my attacks, though it did let one slip through and did not black-list it as Outpost did. However, the port that it allowed me to access was an extremely high port that was tied to the updater of a word processor. So, even though it let me access that port, I could do very little because the port was technically open for full transfers. ZoneAlarm was easy to set up and ran well. Some of its pop-ups can get annoying, and the UI can be slightly confusing for some. Overall, it is a great choice for a free firewall, but it does not beat Comodo.