by Saurabh Pal

Created on: September 22, 2009   Last Updated: March 04, 2011

There are several home firewall products in the market today. Given the amount of spam and spurious programs sent through email, chats or downloads, it is very important for every home computer to stay protected by using a firewall. If a rogue program installed a botnet in your machine then it will start sending spurious emails and very soon choke your internet connection forcing your service provider to block your internet service. You will not be able to get rid of it easily. The last option would be to do a fresh install. A pro-active option would be to install a firewall. This will help protect your machine from spurious programs and mischievous installations.

There are two ways of evaluating firewall products. One according to price and another by popularity. Let us consider the price-wise category first. The cheapest and best value for money is from Windows and it is the Windows default Firewall. This comes installed on your computer or laptop when you buy a certified Windows XP or higher program. This program has all the features that regular firewall programs have. Besides, the other advantage is it does not require must setup or installation. All it requires is enabling the radio button to ensure firewall is active. You can also put programs on its list to ensure these programs are restricted. But the flip side is that this product does not have any reporting capabilities. All it can do is quarantine programs so that they do not get launched in the background.

If you are looking to install the best firewall program then you need to get the Zone Alarm product. It not only provides a firewall but provides an entire security suite that includes anti-virus programs, scan scheduler etc. I have used it personally when my previous organization adopted this product as the company-wide security software. In terms of ranking, this product would perhaps be 'numero uno'!

Another product that is coming up by leaps and bounds is Outpost. This is a product from a company called 'Agnitum' and has rich features and characteristics. Some of the important features include port blocking, packet filtering. Besides it is easy to install and provides detailed reports and does event logging as well.

The other way to get a firewall going on your computer is to use programs provided by your Internet Service Providers. Most providers like Comcast, TimesWarner and others provide a free download of a licensed version of some security program. It could be Norton or CA or any other product. These always work great and serve their purpose.

Clearly there are several good choices before you, if you are looking for something cheap then the Windows firewall may be for you. If you want a great software then Zone Alarm or Outpost will do the job.

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