DefenseWall Personal Firewall Editor's Review

Instantly protect your computer and cover the holes your AV program can't cover with this turnkey security application.

Protecting yourself online is a necessity now-a-days. Surfing the internet without any kind of personal firewall application can be especially dangerous.  Unfortunately, they are often difficult to install and configure. That's one of the major reasons why we like DefenseWall Personal Firewall. It provides you with the protection you need without all of the configuration problems.

Many users don't surf the internet with a software based firewall application because they are often difficult to setup and configure.  Making the wrong choice when presented with configuration dialogs or popups that appear will either close your PC off to all incoming and outgoing internet traffic or infect you with malware. DefenseWall Personal Firewall removes these issues, providing your computer with the protection it needs.

DefenseWall Personal Firewall provides the following benefits.

• No learning modes (as seen with firewall and HIPS programs).
• Minimal popups.
• Compatible with third-party security software and programs.
• No need to configure ports and sockets.
• No application checksum re-calculations.

DefenseWall Firewall is a HIPS (Host-based Intrusion Prevention System) based firewall application that takes a sandboxing approach and uses rights restrictions and virtualization. With this approach, malicious files will not have the permissions required to perform any unwanted changes to your system or be able to make any unauthorized connections to external servers.

Viruses and malware stem from various sources such as browsers, flash drives, e-mail, IM and IRC file transfers, P2P file exchanges, and VoIP calls and transfers. DefenseWall marks all of these sources as untrusted. If malware attempts to install on your system via an "untrusted" source, DefenseWall's HIPS restrictions prevent your system from being infected. Additionally, if malware tries to steal any of your personal, private information through an untrusted DefenseWall will block the transmission.

Pros: Turnkey, easy to install, works out of the box

Cons: UI is a bit bland, but it's hard to get excited about firewall software.

Conclusion: With all of the different types of malware floating around the internet today, if you don't have a firewall active on your computer, you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt, one day or another. It's just a matter of time. DefenseWall Firewall is a turnkey solution that provides you with the protection you need at a reasonable cost.

version reviewed: 3.11