Interesting experiment Dave.  Personally I have found the Sygate Personal Firewall very effective, and, once configured, no hassle.  It's also free, but there is a Pro version also available.

I didn't really do anything except for follow Steve Gibson's step by step instructions at
http://grc.com/su-rebinding9x.htm.

I had been reading through the site, following the links, when I read his concluding remarks:

Although I'm a BIG fan of Personal Firewall products, as you'll see on page 7, "Personal Firewalls", the tremendous power of these straightforward "component unbinding" techniques has allowed you to disable an unwanted and unneeded capability from your system. This solution is superior to depending upon some other product or technology to "suppress" that unwanted capability. That's an important distinction in the realm of robust security.

AND, if neutering your system's networking is not possible because you do still need to share files across the Internet then full security will require the suppression of unwanted networking capabilities. The following two pages, "Evil Port Monitors" and "Personal Firewalls" detail your options and discuss pitfalls.

As I don't share any files and I had plenty time on my hands, I went back, read through again and got on with it.  I still have Sygate installed on my system, so if I start to feel insecure, I can always re-enable it.

For anyone thinking of having a look, the instructions only apply to Win95/98 and NT.

Handy to know, especially if you don't like Firewalls - thanks Dave.  

I'm pleased to say that my router passed that test with flying colours.  

What do you not like about Sygate, Dave?  It's the best free one I've found, and I've tried most of them.

What do you not like about Sygate, Dave?  It's the best free one I've found, and I've tried most of them.

You seem smitten with Sygate Simon, not tried it myself, tell me please what does it do better than ZoneAlarm [free]

Cheers

Tony,

I haven't tried ZA for ages, so to be fair it may have changed, but I found it quite intrusive, with constant alerts and flashing system tray icons.  There was also something else about it I didn't favour, but I can't remember what that was now.  I think it was mainly the alerts that put me off.

Of the free ones I have tried (ZA, Outpost, Tiny), and also Norton 2002/2003 I have found the Sygate one to be the most hassle free, and it hasn't stopped me doing anything I want to do.  Outpost didn't get on with WinMX, Norton 2002 was OK, but 2003 wouldn't allow PC Banking, or Pals chatroom, and seemed over complicated to configure.  I was getting permission requests for each and every web page, even after ticking the 'allow all the time' box.  Tiny was just horrible, from what I remember.

I'm not saying that Sygate is the be all and end all of free firewalls (I actually have the Pro version), but it's the one I have been happiest with.

It's quite a while since I used it, but the only problem I had with Zone Alarm Pro was that every time I started my PC, even to simply type a letter, it tried to connect me to the internet.  Outpost used to simply stop working on its own accord, while Norton slowed me down so much that I was continually switching it off just to be able to surf.  Black Ice Defender has so many features (or gimmicks depending on how you look at it) that I spent a month doing nothing else but playing with it.  I didn't even try Tiny after reading  horror stories about it in the Newsgroups.  Therefore, for now, its Sygate or bust.  

Hopefully, in the not too distant future, someone will develop something that puts your PC in stealth mode and then lets you forget about it.  I don't want anything else.  My anti-virus, anti trojan and Adaware does the rest.