Advice on "free" firewall

[mossy200]

I am using windows defender and avg free firewalls at the moment with spyware doctor pay for protection as well.
Is this enough or can anyone recommend me a better option?
I am not a fan of norton due to past problems.
Thanks

[Polar Bear]

The popular combination seems to be Zone Alarm firewall and AVG antivirus.  Been using them on this pc for well over a year now with no problems.

[bumper]

I used to use 'Comodo' and found it excellent. Give it a google

[Valiant]

My usual set up for clients and office is Zone Alarm, AVG Anti Virus, Spybot with teatimer.

[andygates]

Am I the only one happy with the built-in Windows Firewall?

[JohnP]

Am I the only one happy with the built-in Windows Firewall?

No, you're not.

[saturn]

I assumed the firewall in the router was the main defence and that windows firewall & defender were added extras.

[frankly frankie]

I think 2 software firewalls (ie Win firewall + another) is asking for trouble.  Just use the one, whichever it is.

[vorsprung]

Any thoughts on what you think the magic firewalls are doing?

My home set up has a hardware NAT router and a Linux Iptables firewall
The NAT means that it is very difficult to establish an in bound connection.  The firewall blocks SYN packets, faked local addresses and most ICMP

The MS Windows laptop which can see the Internet has Kaspersky on it and I've banned the use of MS Internet Explorer- firefox is used instead.  Kaspersky does some additional application level network control

[ian]

Another vote for Comodo and AVG. The router is NAT so I don't really bother with anything other than the basic system firewalls on the Mac and Linux machines.

Beyond that, a healthy dose of commonsense is the best defence.

[tonycollinet]

Am I the only one happy with the built-in Windows Firewall?

Well the xp one (aiui) only blocks inbound traffic.

The Vista one is more usefull - blocks inbound and outbound (except for known applications) unless you open ports.

[inc]

Most decent routers have good firewalls, why is another one needed.

[Greenbank]

Most decent routers have good firewalls, why is another one needed.

For the reason mentioned in the previous post. If something did get onto one your machines then a bog standard route firewall won't stop anything getting out.

If you're happy that nothing will infect the machines inside your network then you don't need a software firewall.

With Symantec Client Security on my work laptop I have to allow each and every application access to send outbound data. I get a choice of Block Once, Block Always, Permit Once, Permit Always. It's a bit of a chore at first but it is very easy to spot annoying applications that I don't want to access the network.