A good free firewall for Windows? \ VOGONS

A good free firewall for Windows?

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First post, by Kerr Avon

Posted on 2025-05-11, 19:54

Kerr Avon Offline

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For ages (literally decades) I've been using Zone Alarm as a firewall, as as far as I know, it did the job perfectly. But for a while now, ZA has used a dumbed down user interface, that no longer allows me to tell it to regard any given game or utility as being disallowed internet access. I was previously able to use Zone Alarm to navigate to an .EXE file and tell Zone Alarm that if this .EXE tried to acce4ss the 'net then to automatically deny it 'net access.

I really want this feature back, but it seems gone for good (or maybe it's been moved to only the paid-for version of Zone Alarm - I only use the free version), so can anyone suggest a good, free, Windows 10 firewall that allows me to block any programs that I choose, please?

Or does anyone know how to bring back this feature in the free version of Zone Alarm.

Thanks for any answers.

Reply 1 of 7, by dr_st

Posted on 2025-05-11, 20:14

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Pretty sure this feature has existed in the built-in Windows firewall for the last 15 years or so.

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Reply 2 of 7, by Matth79

Posted on 2025-05-11, 20:54

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Windows Firewall Control is worth a look, or simplewall, or Tinywall, or Windows Firewall Notifier - now that one looks very interesting, open source and feature packed

Reply 3 of 7, by chinny22

Posted on 2025-05-12, 03:33

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dr_st wrote on 2025-05-11, 20:14:

Pretty sure this feature has existed in the built-in Windows firewall for the last 15 years or so.

If all your wanting is to block a program accessing the internet, then to this day my XP SP3 computer has this with the inbuilt firewall and windows firewall is much more powerful today then it was then.

If your wanting to do something more complex then maybe the inbuilt one isn't enough, although if that's the case maybe your better off setting rules on your routers firewall?

Reply 4 of 7, by dr_st

Posted on 2025-05-12, 04:59

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chinny22 wrote on 2025-05-12, 03:33:

If all your wanting is to block a program accessing the internet, then to this day my XP SP3 computer has this with the inbuilt firewall and windows firewall is much more powerful today then it was then.

Yeah, I just didn't remember exactly when the feature was added to the built-in firewall. I was certain it was at least since Win7, but not surprised that it already exists in XP, although possibly not as complete?

Matth79 wrote on 2025-05-11, 20:54:
Windows Firewall Control is worth a look, or simplewall, or Tinywall, or Windows Firewall Notifier - now that one looks very interesting, open source and feature packed

The "Windows Firewall Control" which is basically a convenience front-end to the Windows Firewall indeed may be what's needed by power users to simplify the process of configuration. Thanks for sharing. 😀

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Reply 5 of 7, by Hoping

Posted on 2025-05-12, 06:40

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I' been using the Windows firewall to block exe files since at least 2007 and nowadays works the same way, so, that feature is abailable on Windows firewall from XP and up.

Reply 6 of 7, by ElectroSoldier

Posted on 2025-05-12, 11:37

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ZoneAlarm, Windows firewall.
If they are failing you then a hardware firewall might be your best bet.

Reply 7 of 7, by eM-!3

Posted on 2025-05-14, 07:42

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Latest is not always the greatest. Is there anything stopping you from going back to version which worked the way you wanted?

I don't use firewall at all but I remember using ZoneAlarm 20 years ago. As mentioned by Matth79 there are apps which help to configure Windows Firewall or also there are new opensource independent firewall apps.

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