The Windows Firewall is much better than its Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) predecessor, but still no match for a 3rd-party personal firewall solution such as ZoneAlarmFirst of all, the Windows Firewall does not monitor or block outbound traffic.According to the PCWorld article Overton pointed out that if malicious code gets past the firewall it is the role of antivirus software to handle it.The Windows Firewall also relies on API's which can be disabled.