Are AV firewalls worth the price/subscription cost?

I would say they are worth it but if money is an issue there are good free AV and FW


Cudni

For me personally...No.
It all depends on what you want from a firewall.The "Pro" version of Zone Alarm has extra features.For a surfer that wants those extras from ZA it may be worth it.

I look for basic protection and stealth rating at grc.com.
Some of the free firewalls achieve that.

If you are looking at AV programs....
The AV that I rely on is a paid/subscription program.Basicly, because it has heuristics and it's a very configurable program.In that aspect,I prefer subscription programs over free.
Herbalist brought up some excellent points...I will take the time to tweak an AV,but not a firewall.I don't care to set rules in a rule-based firewall.
Depending on your surfing habits you can easily get by with freeware.Even the least of the freeware AV's would probably do the job.

If your using WinXP the firewall built in is good enough unless you have some specific needs or something highly customized.

-Jake Isern

Has Windows firewall started blocking outbound threats?
If not, I would suggest another software firewall.

IF you were to get a trojan, what would stop it from sending data out?

Paul

No, of course not. The Windows firewall will NOT block outbound threats. If you install Windows Live One Care, however, it modifies the native firewall by Group Policy and creates a firewall that does have outbound blocking capabilities. It seemed to me that is was equivalent to something like the McAfee firewall. However, neither McAfee, One Care, or Zone Alarm free do very well on firewall leak tests.

I cannot find an "edit" button! I meant to say that they do NOT do well on leak tests!

Hello OldRebel, and ups4. I read where starting with Zone Alarm Free 6.1.744 which wasn't used on firewallleaktest, that this version passed a few more including PC Audit. I was going to try this version since it is said to be more stable than newest versions. My question is. If this is correct, does it then warrant using ZA Free in place of Windows XP Firewall? I have tried, and liked Kerio 4.2.2 because of the Application Behavior Blocking, which helped it to pass a few more tests than ZA Free. Unfortunately, since I share the CPU with my wife, I'm afraid that particular feature wouldn't be a good idea in the long run. Will await both of your responses, and thanks ahead of time.

I don't have any personal experience with Zone Alarm Free, but unless it has a specific software conflict with something else on your PC, it is bound to be better than the Windows firewall. Anything (except something with an exploited vulnerability) is better than the Windows firewall, AFAIK.

If you're behind a NATed router, ZA free will do fine for your needs.
However, just disable Windows firewall (or any others) when using ZA.
Most firewalls don't play nice together. Besides, you really only need one in this case.

Paul

Okay thanks. I currently am not using a Router Firewall. That's why I thought it better to use something with outbound protection. As I said Kerio provided this, but I was thinking ZA Free would be simpler in my particular case with my wife also using the CPU.

I would disagree with one comment, that firewalls don't play nice together.

This should be qualified to state 'poorly written' firewalls don't play nice together, like ZoneAlarm or Kerio.

The latter is a decent stateless filter, with a bit of overhead on the usage but ZoneAlarm is far too basic to allow granular settings.

Install either of these however with something like Windows Firewall and expect problems that don't make sense.

If the choice came to the three, I'd stick with windows firewall since performance and 'settings' are both good and simple compared to the other two. ZA is too dumb, and Kerio is too smart. I like a balanced middleground. Something I can use and my children without making a 'oops was I supposed to block that' from happening.

So, ultimately I'd not use any of the above.

I think many of the paid for products are worth the money. I have used many freeware versions in the past and had no problems but i find paid for software seems to give me better peace of mind. Currently i have paid for nod32, outpost pro 3.5 and webroot spysweeper.