I tested a few software firewalls with the Leaktest Firewall Tester which can be downloaded by following the link below
*www.google.com/search?q=leaktest+download+majorgeeks
I tested the following Firewalls and got the results as described in there.
1. McAfee Personel Firewall (V6 Full version)
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It passed the basic Leaktest as it found out that the Leaktest program was trying to communicate with its server grc.com. But when i switched to stealth mode, it let the program make the connection. This vunerability can be exploited by any hacker in his trojans or other such programs.
2. Sygate Personel Firewall (Freeware Version)
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Oh man!! I couldn't do a leaktest on this firewall. In spite of the successful installation, the main program crashed when it started. I restarted it but again, when the work started, it crashed again. A security program that crashed cannot be trusted. At least not by me.
3. Premidius Firewall (Freeware Version)
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This failed the stealth mode, as McAfee did. It was more problematic though. Its installer and uninstaller are not good at all. When I tried to uninstall the app, it just ....ed me up. I forgot to shut it down before uninstallation and it was not removed completely. I rebooted and the program gave an error that "Drivers are Missing" or something like that. And the program still ran in the system tray. I had to kill the app and the services using task manager, delete the files, remove it from the startup list................ Man that was sick............
4. Windows XP In-Built Firewall
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I don't think i need to say anything. It failed all the tests by Leaktest. I don't know what this program is for anyway. It barely gives a warning of programs trying to call out of your computer. Most of the warnings it gives are against other Firewalls. If somebody has not installed any other firewalls and turning the Windows Firewall on, I recommend them to turn it off, at least you will save some system resources.
5. Kerio Personel Firewall (freeware)
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It is a great firewall. If you install it in advanced mode, it will give you complete application awareness. It will give you information on which program is trying to access the internet with details. It will also give you info on what programs have changed since you last ran them. This means, if you have granted your browser, say Firefox.exe, to access the internet without asking, and if some trojan replaces the firefox.exe and tries to communicate outside, the firewall will catch it and give you a warning that the program has changed.
It is not necessary to mention that it passed all the Leaktest tests.
But when i click update, it shows an error "An error occured During Update checking. Please try again". I don't know what is the problem. Please help me out on this.
6. ZoneAlarm Security Suite
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I tried it on ZA Security Suite. A freeware version of ZA firewall is available but I haven't tried the tests on it. I hope it is also similar.
ZA also passed all the tests and monitors application changes. It is a great firewall too.
It has a problem with updates though. We need to download the whole program (ZA Security Suite is about 16 Mb) in order to update the firewall engine. This is sick.