Lavasoft Personal Firewall (32-bit) 3.0

• License:

  Free to try; $29.95 to buy (Buy it now)

• Editor's Rating:

  4.0 stars

• Average User Rating:

  3.0 stars (out of 45 votes) Rate it!

• Downloads:

  149,297

• Operating Systems:

  Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98

• Additional Requirements:

  Windows 98/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server

• Limitations:

  10-day trial

• Date Added:

  April 02, 2008

• Previous Versions:

  Select a version Lavasoft Personal Firewall 2 Lavasoft Personal Firewall 1

• Add to my Watch List

Publisher's description of Lavasoft Personal Firewall (32-bit)

From Lavasoft:

Lavasoft Personal Firewall is targeted for small and medium-sized business organizations and home users, providing seamless and powerful protection for both. This firewall product comes with simple configuration, "tick in the box" options. and powerful, easy-to-use controls. Coupled with Ad-Aware SE Plus or Ad-Aware SE Professional, it is a great help to keep the home PC and small office free from intrusive Internet worms, Trojan horses, hijackers, cyber thieves, or online extortionists.

Version 3.0 features: improved host protection monitoring and blocking data theft; auto-learning mode keeping track of typical activities during the program's initital use.

See more CNET content tagged:

Ad-aware,

Lavasoft,

firewall,

protection,

small and medium business

Editor's review of Lavasoft Personal Firewall (32-bit)

• 4.0 stars

• "Is Lavasoft's firewall as good as Ad-Aware?"

• Reviewed by: CNET Staff
• Version reviewed: Lavasoft Personal Firewall (32-bit) 3.0

This powerful personal firewall from the makers of Ad-Aware offers effective protection, ease of use, and a solid feature set. Based on Agnitum Outpost Firewall s engine, the program boasts a well-designed interface that prominently displays an event log of all activities. The application s left panel contains sections for network activity, open ports, and allowed or blocked processes. Lavasoft Personal Firewall quickly scans your PC to add policies for all found applications and easily adapts to newly installed software. Like any good firewall, this one displays a system-tray icon and notifies you whenever an unapproved process attempts to run. When you first start using the app, you ll need to approve or block programs on your computer, either on a one-time or recurring basis. Configuring global and specific firewall policies is simple enough for novices, while the detailed logs will help advanced users track down network and PC problems. In our tests, Lavasoft Persoanl Firewall demonstrated solid protection against threats, expected from a company best known for its spyware protection. The main downside we see is the short 10-day trial period, which may prevent some users from trying the program, particularly given the amount of quality, free firewalls on the market. Nevertheless, anyone in the market for a reliable personal firewall will find Lavasoft s addition to the category a very positive affair.

User reviews

• Average user rating: 0 stars Not yet available
• My rating: 0 stars Write review

• Showing 2 of 2 user reviewsSee all 2 user reviews
  This software version | All versions

• 3 stars

  Version: Lavasoft Personal Firewall (32-bit) 3.0

  "Disappointed - I expected more from Lavasoft"

  by Zenbob96 on June 3, 2009

  Pros: Aggressive, itchy and twitchy

  Cons: Aggressive, itchy and twitchy. It hiccups a lot, and seems to be in a pitched battle with users...the pop-up screens come at you so fast that you feel overwhelmed. Seems feverishly incapable for the program to learn new rules.

  Summary: Exhausting, frustrating and silly. Why provide check boxes for setting new behavior when the program just keeps smacking away constantly with the same old behavior? I felt like I was engaged in an epic fly swatting battle.
  
  In the end, i... read more >>

  Was this review helpful? YES | NO

  Report this post Email this post Permalink to this post

  Reply to this review

• 4 stars

  1 out of 2 people found this review helpful

  Version: Lavasoft Personal Firewall (32-bit) 3.0

  "Best of the worst."

  by Someonehowdoescare on November 15, 2008

  Pros: Detects everything (as far as I can tell), can group one application's activity, has a farily good entertainment (full screen) mode, and it even does firewall-level content blocking!

  Cons: Tries very hard to not let you be in charge. Sometimes allows an app. access even though you have specified that you want to block it. (It overrides your decisions based on some algorithm or something.)

  Summary: Very hard to take controll of the application, it wants to be all-automatic; which it does not do a very good job at. However, when you do get in controll it is the best firewall available today.

  Was this review helpful? YES | NO

  Report this post Email this post Permalink to this post

  Reply to this review

• See all 2 user reviews Write review