Sunbelt Personal Firewall
Sunbelt's Personal Firewall is our top choice again this year as the best stand-alone personal firewall. It's simple but powerful.
Make no mistake, this is a serious firewall software suitable for the most demanding uses. But Sunbelt has made it accessible even for novice users.
TOP FEATURES
Best stand-alone firewall
Filters inbound & outbound
Highly customizable
Easy to use
Sunbelt keeps up their record of delivering strong, easy to use software with this release of their Personal Firewall.
In our many test installations, we didn't encounter any snags, although it's important to note the Personal Firewall isn't yet compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows.
The user interface is well set up to for both novices and advanced users. You can either set-it-and-forget-it or fully customize it to suit your needs.
Resource usage was excellent. For such a strong and fully active bi-directional firewall, we found little to no effect on system load, even under the high volume network attacks we
threw at our test PCs in our labs.
It should be noted that while this is and excellent software firewall, a firewall alone doesn't mean your PC is protected. For Sunbelt, that comes in the
VIPRE Antivirus Premium firewall combo.
By upgrading to VIPRE Antivirus Premium, your PC has protection against all types of viruses, worms, trojans, and other attacks.
Alone, Sunbelt Personal Firewall is powerful in its own right, but
VIPRE Antivirus Premium offers a high-performance, high-value antivirus firewall software to help protect your PC online.
Sunbelt Personal Firewall Features
Sunbelt Personal Software Firewall Assessment
Here we've listed a breakdown of each category we've tested for Sunbelt Personal Firewall. Each category was given a percentage rating based on those tests.
Firewall Installation: 100%
The installation was very fast and easy. There's a simple installation program that does not need any additional files or definitions to complete.
The firewall is ready for operation right after the install (which only takes about 60 seconds).
Un-installation: 99%
You can easily remove Sunbelt Personal Firewall by using Windows' ADD/REMOVE Programs function.
It took even less time to uninstall than it did to install with a final reboot making the uninstallation complete.
All program files and folders were cleanly removed, leaving only one harmless reference left in the registry.
It was harmless, but we're sticklers, and we like to see everything gone. Thus, the Personal Firewall gets 99% instead of 100%.
User Interface: 95%
The user interface (UI) design is very easy to use and navigate.
There's plenty of information on each section which saves you the trouble of having to click through endless settings just to find what you want.
You have the option of using the Simple mode or Advanced mode. Both look exactly the same with only one difference: the Simple mode tells you not to change any settings (just turn it on and let it run), while the Advanced mode gives the user more alerts and setting options.
Sunbelt's Personal Firewall keeps logs of network activity separated by traffic type: web, network, NIPS, HIPS, and program behavior (the logs list programs that have launched other programs to get Internet access. This sophisticated logging isn't just "nice to have"; it can help you--and Sunbelt--track things down later if you happen to somehow get a particularly sneaky virus or spyware.
Overall, it's a well-executed interface for either the novice or advanced user. There's as much or as little information you'll likely ever need to keep this firewall fully functional (and your system secure).
Resource Usage: 90%
Resource usage was on par with its antivirus counterpart, VIPRE: very good. Real-time memory usage stayed well under 0.5% (even when surfing web sites and "attacking" the machine from elsewhere on the Internet). For the most part, the CPU idled at 0%, momentarily jumping to 60% for a short period if new applications were being launched that were connecting to the Internet.
Memory usage was fairly constant at 60MB during a full-system, manual scan.
The user interface is held in memory, so there's no additional resource usage when opening the UI (good thinking), and because of that it opens quickly, too.
Sunbelt Personal Firewall
Antivirus Scanning Resource Usage
|
| Real-Time Memory |
0.5% |
| Manual Scan Memory |
60MB |
| Manual Scan CPU |
60% |
Note: These are the average results we found during our testing.
Every PC is different, of course, so your results may vary, but we expect these results to be fairly representative.
|
Firewall: 96%
Sunbelt Personal Software Firewall
Firewall Scores
|
|
Firewall Performance
|
| Inbound Blocking |
98 |
| Outbound Blocking |
94 |
|
Other Firewall Ratings
|
| Firewall Ease-of-Use |
95 |
| Configuration Flexibility |
95 |
|
Sunbelt Personal Firewall has two modes: Simple and Advanced.
Simple mode allows traffic out and blocks all incoming traffic (until you approve which applications and connections are safe). This helps to prevent hackers from accessing your computer.
In Simple mode, usage is easy. You'll be notified anytime something needs to be changed. Otherwise, you can use the firewall right out of the box (or download as the case may be) with literally zero configuration.
Advanced mode will give you many alerts at first as you train it on what's "normal" traffic from your PC. You permit or deny any traffic, and as you do the software creates rules based on that decision, so the firewall won't have to ask you for permission each time for the same traffic (unless for some reason you want it to.)
Advanced mode is likely too cumbersome for novice users (after all it
is called "Advanced Mode" and for good reason), but regular firewall users will be fine.
Simple mode is as easy as set-it-and-forget-it). Simply put, Advanced mode recognizes and alerts you to all incoming and outgoing traffic.
We found opening ports, blocking certain types of traffic, and other common firewall tasks were quick and easy to do and worked accurately.
If we opened a port, it opened; if we closed it, it closed. That may sound like a given but having dealt with literally hundreds of different firewalls over the years, this isn't always as easy as it should be.
And where it counts, the Sunbelt Personal Firewall recognized and blocked every attempt to access our testing computer. Nothing got through. Easily the best score so far.
Customer Support: 97%
The help documentation is thorough and separated into two sections: Basic and Advanced. As we read through it, looking for accuracy and potential snags, we found it to be
complete, accurate, and easy to read.
If you do need help, Sunbelt's customer and tech support is easy to find from the Sunbelt website. However, unlike with VIPRE there is no direct link from the firewall software
itself.
All support is 100% free and based in the U.S. Phone, email, and chat support are all available 9am-9pm (EST).
Sunbelt is known for how strongly they support their software, and the Personal Firewall software is no different. Support is free, and as with our other tech support inquiries to
Sunbelt, their techs quickly, accurately answered our questions and solved our issues.
Sunbelt Personal Software Firewall
Review Conclusions
|
Sunbelt Personal Software Firewall Scores
|
|
Antivirus
|
$19.95
|
| Overall Internet Security Protection |
98 |
| Real-time Security Protection |
|
| Manual Antivirus Scanning |
|
| Resource Utlization |
90 |
| Virus Removal (Pre-infected Machine) |
|
| Antivirus Definition Updates |
|
|
Additional Internet Security Features
|
| Spyware/Adware Protection |
|
| Email Protection |
|
| Anti-Spam Protection |
|
| Firewall Software |
96 |
| Parental Controls Software |
|
| IM/Instant Message Protection |
|
| Anti-Phishing Protection |
|
|
Other Software Ratings
|
| Installation |
100 |
| Un-installation |
99 |
| User Interface |
95 |
| Customer Technical Support |
97 |
|
Throughout all our testing, Sunbelt Personal Firewall comes out on top again this year. While most
Internet Security Suites combine a firewall with antivirus protection, Sunbelt has chosen to split the two applications, giving users the option to add on the Personal Firewall to VIPRE for $10 if you'd like to.
They do this for those that may only want antivirus software protection or a personal firewall alone. Even if you want to combine VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware with the Sunbelt Personal Firewall, the two applications are designed to integrate together on your computer.
- Best stand-alone firewall
- Easy, solid user interface
- Powerful protection
- Works perfectly with VIPRE Antivirus
With our coupons, you can get both VIPRE and the software firewall together for $29.96--a really good value considering they're both our top performers for 2010
Sunbelt Personal Firewall held up to our rigorous testing with ease. Our attempts to attack the computer from the Internet were blocked and the malware we installed on our lab test
PCs was blocked when it tried to connect to the Internet for instructions.
The user interface is clean and easy enough for even the most novice user, but deep enough for advanced users who need more control.
All-in-all, we're pleased with Sunbelt's Personal Firewall 4. It's good software.
Sunbelt Personal Software Firewall
System Requirements
|
| Software
|
- Windows 2000 Professional
- Windows XP Professional
- Windows XP Home
- Windows XP Media Center Edition
- Windows Vista 32-bit
- (64-bit versions not yet supported)
|
| Free Disk Space
|
10 MB
|
VIPRE vs BitDefender Antivirus
