A firewall is a dedicated appliance, or software running on another computer, which inspects network traffic passing through it, and denies or permits passage based on a set of rules.[According to Wikipedia] Windows Vista comes with a free firewall but this pre-installed firewall not offer many customization options. However if you need a more control over the application like which application is trying to access the Internet then you need a firewall that offer you a better level of customization.
Free Firewalls
- Zone Alarm
- Comodo
- Sphinx
- PC Tools Firewall
- XP Firewall Commander 3.1
- PC Live
- Firewall Tuneup 1.5
- Vista64FirewallControl 1.3
- Vista Firewall Control 1.3
- MiniWall Firewall
- Ashampoo Firewall [Updated by PC Tonic]
After installing any one of the firewall you can also check the security status from grc
Comodo is easily the best of all these. The Windows Vista firewall is actually much better than XP firewall, but it’s not very easy to customise.
You can add one more to the list – Ashampoo Free Firewall. I never liked it but they have supposedly improved it a lot now.
As per the subscription settings, I don’t know anything about WordPress. May be there is some setting to set the feeds to full post.
Comodo had to be the worst firewall i ever tried, each time my internet IP changed, which in ZA is usually once every 12 hours weather or not you disconnect, it started all over with a new profile and configure it every single time to allow my applications. after 3 days i had 35 profiles setup plus it slowed down browsing and blocked safe sites, messed up my network.
I just read this after turning off the vista home premium firewall, under the new service pack 2. Browsing was almost impossible with the firewall turned on. When turned off pages load instantly and all my sharing folders are readily accessible! … so obviously the vista firewall is working too much.