Firewall for all

Online Armor Free is the freeware version of Tall Emu's award-winning Online Armor firewall software. Tall Emu, an Australian company, specializes in technical and security support for small and medium-size businesses. Its free firewall is based on their premium enterprise firewall and is billed as being unusually powerful and effective for freeware. The premium version of Online Armor certainly packs some impressive recommendations, including five cows at Tucows.com and the top recommendation of "Computerworld."

Online Armor has a professional feel that is typical of freeware versions of advanced security tools, with the same basic interface and functionality as the company's premium software, only without nonessential extra features, just pared down to what it needs to secure your computer from outside attacks. Tall Emu's Web site offers considerable help with friendly touches, such as screenshots that you can click on to "embiggen" (a word from "The Simpsons") as well as video tutorials and live support from Tall Emu staff and users forums, should you need them. It's easy to configure, even though it packs plenty of options.

Online Armor Free lacks some of the features offered in the paid Premium and PlusPlus versions, such as antivirus and anti-malware protection, phishing filters, online banking protection, email filtering, and other features that your antivirus software probably already has, or should. What it does offer is an unusually robust firewall that can protect your system from a wide range of sophisticated attacks. Since it's free, you can't blame Tall Emu if you're unprotected and you get hacked.