PC Tools Firewall Plus – Free Personal Firewall

Posted on May 26, 2008 at 5:11 am

Looking for an easy to use, free personal firewall for your computer? If you haven’t installed one yet, I recommend that you do so today. For your information, a firewall acts as a barrier that protects your computer from unauthorized user/application access from within the local network and the Internet.

A firewall allows trusted computers or applications to connect to your personal computer, with your permission only. This way, the risk of getting your machine infected by viruses, tampered with malware/spyware, nasty hackers and other malicious attacks will be reduced drastically. To get you started, Firewall Plus is free personal firewall by PC Plus that you can use to protect your Windows computer.

If you have ever installed a personal firewall a few years back, you knew that it is not easy to use. Back then, you need to understand and remember port numbers/protocols to be able to use your firewall at its fullest capability. PC Tools Firewall Plus changes all that – it is both beginner and expert friendly.

You don’t have to know the nitty-gritty firewall concepts to be able to use it. All you need to do is to know which applications will be allowed to connect to the network and which ones are not. With this knowledge, you can choose to allow or block them once the connection alert appears. Moreover, Firewall Plus ensures that protection from attacks will work with minimal hassles/interferences from the software.

pctools-firewall-plus-full-screenshot

PC Tools Firewall Plus Features

Free to use with no time or function limitations.
Easy to use interface – you can turn the firewall on/off and control all the important things from within the first screen.

pctools-firewall-plus

Automatic prevention by default – once installed, Firewall Plus will allow safe, known applications and blocks other unnecessary network connections. It will then alert users to allow/block applications if any network connection attempts are made.
Comes in two selectable modes:
1. Normal User Mode – a simplified interface that is best used by end users who only cares about being protected but not the extra functions.
2. Expert Mode – a highly configurable interface with extra alert and configuration details. Strictly for geeks only.
Smart Application Rules – you can define how an application should behave from the “Applications Blocking Screen“. Example actions are to enable logging for a specific application, grant application full access, block access and more. You can also allow an application to make connection but bar it from acting as a server (listening mode).

easy-allowed-blocked-app-management

Advanced Packet Filtering Rules (for experts) – you can create, import and export your own set of firewall rules.

advanced-firewall-rules-options

Stealth Mode protection allows you to connect your PC to other computers but blocks them from making connections with yours. Sweet!
Data Validation via Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) ensures each data packets from other networks e.g. Internet are checked before any connection attempts are allowed.
Application Protection protects all your application from being used by other unauthorized users/applications without permission.
History and current network activity view to list down all connections made from and to your computer.
Smart Update ensures Firewall Plus is in good shape to block new network-based attacks.
Proxy support.

Overall, PC Plus Firewall Plus is a recommended free personal firewall for both beginners and experts. It doesn’t bug end-users with unnecessary protection options/alerts yet still provides extra features such as advanced packet filtering rules that will surely appeal experts and geeks. For a hacker-free and real time protection from network attacks, get PC Tools Personal Firewall today!

This is a guest post by Syahid A. from TechMalaya

Tags: personal firewall, free personal firewall, firewall, network protection, hacker protection