Firewalls are dime a dozen these days. When the concept of a firewall first became important on home computers, with the advent of real high-speed broadband, Tiny Personal Firewall was the best. It even had the approval of experts. Unfortunately, CA stepped in and gobbled up the company.

Zone Alarm was already a strong contender, but with Tiny gone, it soon became the de-facto firewall on the machine of users who knew better than to let this computer flounder under the bloatware of Mcafee or Symantec.

Unfortunately, of late, Zone Alarm has been a bit of a hog on my machine. It's a Core2Duo, which means software such as Zone Alarm should cheerfully work in parallel with no fuss. AVG for instance scans my entire machine for an hour without my so much as bothering about it.

It is in this context that I came across Comodo Firewall, one that is recommended by more than a few techies. Being a born tinkerer, I was off in a jiffy to download the thing. And short story: it rocks.

Below's a screenshot. It looks more professional than even Zone Alarm Pro. There are more options, explained more clearly.