14 DAY TRIAL // Are you using a firewall? Everybody says that it's the best choice to do so, and I can't disagree with that. Anyway, I don't use such a tool yet, and maybe the main reason is that I still haven't found what I am looking for, that being a near perfect firewall that's also free to use. Maybe I want too much, but that's life, if you don't want more all the time, you'll end up with nothing to leave behind.
Getting back to our subject, I can tell you that the name of today's firewall is TZ Personal Firewall, its latest version is 3.3.0.0 and what I have installed here for my review is a feature limited shareware version. If you want to stop seeing "Sorry, this option is disabled in the trial version.", then you'll have to take out of your pocket 15$ to register, or uninstall this program, of course. Well, I don't want to think about this application's removal, because I have just finished installing this 4.2MB setup package, and we still have to check an interface and some features, don't you think?
TZ Personal Firewall has a shiny, skinnable interface that's easy to use and well organized, but I think that something's missing and I can't say exactly what. The only thing that I really don't like and I can tell you exactly what it is-the system tray icon that keeps moving on and on without a purpose, for me it's really annoying! Other than that, things look good, and there are two options areas that we need to explore next, Traffic and Rule.
First of all, I have to tell you that this program is not really annoying when asking confirmations for different applications that connect to the Internet, and simplicity is one of the best things to have when using a firewall.
Getting to the Traffic area, I can tell you that we have six tools here, but two are locked in the trial version - Blocked IP Packets and Operation log. The remaining ones are Processing port traffic, a tool that displays processes connected to the Internet and lets you kill the unwanted ones, Net watch, a packet sniffer, and the Application log that takes care of writing down all the applications that tried to connect to the Internet and the action you have taken.
Ok, so we have some nice traffic related features, and next we need some rules to enforce the network traffic, because that's what a firewall does, after all - filtering of the data packets that go through your network interfaces.
The Rule area has five tools, but only three of them can be used without registering the program. The first one, called Application rule, enables you to choose the action to perform for each program in the list when it tries to connect to the Internet, act as a server or send mail. The options available are ask, block and pass. The next item, Ip packets rule, as well as Web page filtration, are locked, so I don't have anything to say about them, we can only imagine their purpose, because the documentation won't help us much either...
The Mail attachment rule should block unwanted files from being received as email attachments, but this can also be done using a good antivirus. Even more, maybe sometimes I want to receive an executable file from my team mates, because that's a useful one, and the mail filter present in this firewall doesn't leave me the choice to set it to ask permissions, as before. Too bad...
At last, the Option area is so basic, that I just can't say anything about it...all you have to do is take a look and you'll understand me. These being said, there's nothing more left to add, but draw the conclusions and check the screenshots as usual, so let's go!
The Good
TZ Personal Firewall is a cute, small, fast and reliable firewall, and comes for a good price.
The Bad
The shareware version has too much limitations and the Help file looks like it was done by an Indian freelancer for 5$...
The Truth
Would I pay for TZ Personal Firewall? The answer is "no". Would I use it if Santa would bring me a license? Why not? Although it didn't pass the PC Flank Leak test, it passed Firewall Leakage Tester's trial, and the system resources taken up are pretty low. If you have the time, give it a try, it may surprise you!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
