I just gotta say,black ice is crap,norton personal firewall works ok but its annoying and not free. Sygate personal firewall works competently although I did had a open port which was a problem. Zone alarm, ahhh good old zone alarm, can be defeated. I used to like it,annoying too and as I said earlier about black ice can be defeated. All you zonies dont jump down my throat. In lieu of a hardware solution ("the bomb") I prefer yes, tiny personal firewall oh, its free too.:nerves