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For a free product, Zone Alarm Free is one of the best available. It comes highly recommended by all computer-savvy people I know...and with good reason.
The only complaint I have had with Zone Alarm Free of late--and this has only been with the most recent updates--is the fact that it has prevented me from logging into GMail quite often. GMail has a solution for this problem in its help FAQ, which is to enter its site address into the trusted sites of Zone Alarm, and I have done this; however, Zone Alarm, for whatever reason, keeps resetting itself and putting New Network in the Host Name spot instead of www.gmail.com, which is what GMail instructed users to put there. So, whenever I am unable to log into my web mail account at the GMail site or to download my POP3 e-mail from GMail, Zone Alarm is the first place I have to look. This is an annoyance, to be sure, but a minor tradeoff for free broadband Internet security, in my opinion.
There are also times when technicians with whom I am working tell me to shut down Zone Alarm if I am unable to connect to their server, unable to log into their site, etc., etc., etc. If that solves the problem, rather than shut down Zone Alarm every time in the future I plan to log into their site, I ask them which site or IP address I should program into Zone Alarm as the trusted site so that I don't have to shut it down in the future. They are almost always pleasantly surprised that I know enough to ask and are more than cooperative.
For a free program, Zone Alarm Free is great. Heck, I've even come across some pay programs--though not firewall programs--that were much less reliable.
Kudos to Zone Labs and Check Point for realizing that Internet security is more important than money!

Added: January 30th 2006

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NOTE: Product reviews are independently written by our members and do not necessarily express the opinions or views of CastleCops.