Best Free Firewalls For Windows for 2014

Firewalls, no doubt, are one of the most important components of your computer (network). You know you need a firewall, so that your computer (network) is not visible on the Internet to the bad guys. These are bad guys who find computer ports and access your computer through one of them. Their tactics keep on changing and hence, the firewall designing companies add more and more security to their firewalls – firmware or software. While the built-in Windows Firewall works good for most of us, this article discusses some of the best free firewalls for Windows.

Best Firewalls for 2014

List of Top 5 Free Firewalls For Windows 7 – For 2014

#1 Hardware Firewalls

As always, the firmware firewalls are on top and are present at the very first point of contact with the Internet. Hardware firewalls are ones included in your routers and modems that help you stay invisible on the Internet. While the default mode they provide is stealth mode, you can use one of the tests mentioned below to see the results. In case you wish to test the hardware firewall, please disable any other firewall (including Windows firewall) before running the tests. You can read more here on Hardware firewall vs Software firewall.

While I was totally convinced that these are the best form of protection as you can have these firewall turned on and then use a software firewall to add another layer, I now urge you to test the hardware firewall just in case your ISP too configured them to appear as closed instead of stealth mode.

#2 Comodo Firewall

There are plenty of good reviews of Comodo free firewall comparing it to Zonealarm free firewall. But please note that the Zonealarm free firewall does not provide all the features that Comodo Free Firewall. I guess the articles comparing Comodo and ZoneAlarm were comparing Comodo Free Firewall with the paid ZoneAlarm Security Suite.

The same is reflected by Matousec - a website that offers comparison among different security suites. Matousec places Comodo firewall at the first place among software firewalls. My own tests showed all ports in stealth mode. Please read our complete review of Comodo Free Firewall.

#3 Private Firewall

This is not much popular firewall, and probably few of you might not even have heard of it. CNET gives it 5 stars (spectacular) rating. It works and works much better compared to many other free firewalls for Windows. Como do is best, but is a bit heavy on resources. The alerts from Comodo may sometimes be very complex for novices. If you need a simple firewall that goes easy on your computer resources, here is a little about Private Firewall.

#4 Outpost Security Suite

As evident from the name, Outpost is a complete security suite. That means it has a firewall, an antimalarial and anti spyware etc. components. The entire thing can be installed in few clicks. Though free, you have to register it to continue using beyond two days. I would have preferred if it offered firewall separately instead of offering entire bundle. That way you could have used a separate antivirus with the benefit of Outpost firewall. It has 3.5 stars from CNET and 3 stars from PC Mag. Here is our review of Outpost Security Suite.

#5 ZoneAlarm Free Firewall

No list of firewalls is complete without mentioning Zone Alarm firewall. Though the pro version offers a much better protection, the free version too is highly popular and runs on many computers across the world.                                                                         

                                                                                                                  Santosh Prajapati