Windows

Protect Your Windows System: 17 Free Firewall Solutions

Hazem Abbas

Aug 19, 2024 — 12 min read

A firewall is an essential security tool that acts as a barrier between your computer and potential threats from the internet. It monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic, blocking unauthorized access while allowing legitimate connections to pass through.

For Windows users, having a reliable firewall is crucial to protect personal data, prevent malware attacks, and ensure safe online browsing.

In this blog post, we’ll explore 17 free firewall apps for Windows that can enhance your system’s security. Whether you're a casual user who wants to safeguard your personal files or someone who frequently connects to public networks, these firewalls offer an extra layer of protection without slowing down your computer.

Choosing the right firewall can make a significant difference in maintaining your privacy and keeping your system secure from cyber threats.

1- TinyWall (Recommended)

TinyWall is a free lightweight, free firewall for Windows designed to enhance security without interrupting your workflow. It provides robust protection by blocking malicious activity while allowing trusted applications to operate seamlessly. TinyWall offers an intuitive interface, requires no configuration out of the box, and prevents unauthorized changes to its settings.

It also features whitelist-based protection, allowing users to easily control which programs can access the internet. Additionally, TinyWall has no pop-up notifications, ensuring a distraction-free experience, and supports password protection, auto-learning mode, and real-time network monitoring. TinyWall is ideal for users looking for a simple, unobtrusive firewall solution.

Features of TinyWall

Multiple and easy ways to whitelist programs
Automatic learning mode
Firewall tampering protection
Password lockdown of settings
Windows Store & UWP support
Support for both WSL and WSL 2
Support for whitelisting processes from network shares
Various quick-modes, like standard, only-outgoing, block all, etc.
Support for temporary/timed firewall rules
Integrated port and domain blocklists
Hosts file protection
Boot-time filtering
Filtering of promiscuous apps
Port-scan prevention
Option to always allow communication within LAN
Option to restrict an application to the LAN
Recognition of safe software and impostors
Full IPv6 support
Can list established and blocked connections
Can list open ports on your machine
No telemtery, no data collection.
100% free and clean software. No fees, no ads, no paid upgrades.

2- ZoneAlarm

ZoneAlarm is a free Firewall for Windows, that comes with dozen of security features.

Features of ZoneAlarm

Advanced Firewall Protection: Monitors and blocks unauthorized access to your computer, providing robust security against hackers and intrusions.
Antivirus and Anti-Spyware: Integrates antivirus and anti-spyware tools to detect and remove malware, ensuring comprehensive protection against online threats.
Real-Time Security Updates: Automatically updates its threat database to protect against the latest viruses, malware, and phishing attacks.
Identity Protection: Safeguards your personal information and helps prevent identity theft by monitoring and securing your online activities.
Wi-Fi Security: Protects your data on public Wi-Fi networks by securing your connection and preventing cyber attacks.
Two-Way Firewall: Monitors both incoming and outgoing traffic to block threats from entering or leaving your system, enhancing overall network security.

3- pfSense

pfSense is an open-source firewall and router software designed to provide robust security and network management solutions. Built on FreeBSD, pfSense offers advanced features such as stateful packet filtering, VPN support, intrusion detection and prevention, and traffic shaping.

It is highly customizable, making it suitable for both small businesses and large enterprises. pfSense also supports high availability, load balancing, and can be deployed on various hardware platforms, providing a reliable and scalable solution for securing and managing networks.

Features of pfSense

Advanced Firewall: Provides powerful stateful packet filtering to protect your network from unauthorized access and threats.
VPN Support: Offers robust VPN capabilities, including IPsec and OpenVPN, for secure remote access and site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention: Integrates with Snort and Suricata for real-time monitoring and blocking of potential security threats.
Load Balancing: Supports load balancing across multiple WAN connections to optimize bandwidth and ensure network reliability.
Traffic Shaping: Allows for precise control of bandwidth allocation and prioritization to optimize network performance.
High Availability: Enables redundancy with CARP, ensuring continuous network operation by automatically switching to a backup server in case of failure.

4- Easy Firewall

Easy Firewall is a user-friendly tool that simplifies the process of blocking or unblocking applications by creating classic Windows Firewall rules.

It ensures that the selected application is blocked across all profiles (private, public), for any port, protocol, or direction.

With just a few clicks, you can manage application access to your network, providing an easy way to enhance your system's security.

5- Free Firewall

Free Firewall by Evorim is a comprehensive security solution for Windows that offers advanced protection against online threats and unauthorized access. It allows users to monitor and control all inbound and outbound traffic, ensuring that only trusted applications can connect to the internet.

Free Firewall is designed to provide both ease of use and powerful features, making it an ideal choice for users seeking to enhance their system's security without complexity.

Features of Free Firewall

Inbound and Outbound Traffic Control: Monitors and controls all data traffic, blocking unauthorized connections and applications.
Application Access Control: Allows users to manage which applications can access the internet, preventing potentially harmful software from connecting.
Protection Against Tracking: Blocks tracking cookies and scripts, enhancing privacy by preventing tracking across websites.
Stealth Mode: Makes your computer invisible to hackers by blocking incoming connections from the internet.
Privacy Protection: Offers features to block telemetry and data collection services, ensuring your personal information remains private.
Easy-to-Use Interface: Provides a user-friendly interface that simplifies the management of firewall rules and security settings.

Free Firewall

6- Advanced Onion Router

Advanced Onion Router is a portable client for the OR network, offering a more advanced alternative to the Tor+Vidalia+Privoxy bundle for Windows users.

It enhances anonymity and security with features like UNICODE path support, combined HTTP/HTTPS proxy protocols on the same port, and HTTP header filtering that generates fake identity-dependent headers.

It also supports NTLM proxies, private identity isolation, and includes a user-friendly interface to manage Tor options.

Features of Advanced Onion Router

Portable: writes settings to application folder, does not write to the system registry
Read-only mode, when running from read-only media - no files are written
All configuration files can be encrypted with AES
All-In-One application - it can replace Tor, Vidalia, Privoxy/Polipo, cntlm, and more
Supported proxy protocols: Socks5, Socks4, HTTP, HTTPS (all on the same port, autodetected)
Support for corporate (NTLM) proxies
Point and click process interceptor that can redirect all connections of a program, disallow non-supported protocols and restrict some information about the local system (fake system time, fake local hostname, etc.)
Banlist for addresses and routers
HTTP header filtering that generates fake identity-dependent headers every time the identity is changed
Circuit builder that allows building circuits by specifying a node list and that can estimate good circuits
Nodes can be banned / added to favorites from any existing circuit or from router selection dialogs
Circuit priorities can be changed from the "OR network" page
AS path estimations for all circuits with the option to build only circuits that don't have AS path intersections
Avoid using in same circuit nodes from the same countries
Circuit length is optional and can be changed to have between 1 and 10 routers
Better isolation between private identities (delete cookies from 5 supported browsers, expire an internal cookie cache, delete Flash/Silverlight cookies, generate new fake browser identity information, and more)
A list of favorite processes that can be started and intercepted at startup
All child processes created by a process that is intercepted are also intercepted
Plugin support
Hot keys
Multi-language support
Onion address generator that can generate .onion addresses with a given prefix
Automatic IP / identity changes that can use a configurable exit selection algorithm

Advanced Onion Router

Download Advanced Onion Router for free. Advanced Onion Router is a portable client for the OR network and is intended to be an improved alternative for Tor+Vidalia+Privoxy bundle for Windows users. Some of the improvements include UNICODE paths, support for HTTP and HTTPS proxy protocols on the same Socks4/Socks5 port with HTTP header filtering that generates fake identity-dependent headers every time the identity is changed (proxy chains are also supported), support for NTLM proxies, a User Interface that makes Tor’s options and actions more accessible, local banlist for forbidden addresses, private identity isolation, a point-and-click process interceptor that can redirect connections from programs that don’t support proxies, also giving them fake information about the local system and support for .onion addresses.

SourceForgehoseinali

7- wipfw

wipfw - IPv4 packet filter and traffic shaper for Windows based on IPFW (FreeBSD firewall).

wipfw

Download wipfw for free. wipfw - IPv4 packet filter and traffic shaper for Windows based on IPFW (FreeBSD firewall).

SourceForgekulamanisethi

8- Simplewall

This simple tool is designed to configure the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP), allowing users to manage and control network activity on their computers.

It is a lightweight application, under one megabyte in size, and is compatible with Windows 8.1 and newer operating systems. The tool is available in both installer and portable versions, and requires administrator rights to function correctly.

9- WaGis-Mass-IP-Blacklist-Windows-Firewall

WAGI IP Blacklister is an open-source tool designed to automatically block malicious IP addresses by updating firewall rules. It helps enhance network security by preventing access from known harmful IPs, making it ideal for protecting servers and networks from potential threats.

The app is available on SourceForge and can be used to improve your system's defenses with minimal setup.

Features

Blocking a mass of IPs through the Windows Firewall
Block IPs from a List
Interval based Blocking IPs from List
Being faster(5 seconds instead of 2h with batch script)
IPv4 Support
IPv6 Support
CIDR Support

10- Fort Firewall

Fort is an effective firewall designed for Windows 7 and later versions, offering both simplicity and robustness.

Features of Fort Firewall

Filter by network addresses, application groups and more
Filter by SvcHost.exe service names
Support for wildcards in application path names
Speed limit application groups
Blocklists via "Zones"
Saves traffic statistics
Graphical display of the bandwidth
Has its own kernel driver based on the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP)

12- Windows Firewall Ruleset

Windows Firewall Ruleset is an alpha-stage, fully automated solution for configuring Windows Firewall using PowerShell. It applies restrictive firewall rules tailored to the specific system and installed software.

The project consists of two main components: a set of firewall rules and a firewall framework. The rules are organized into PowerShell scripts based on criteria such as rule group, traffic direction (inbound, outbound, IPSec), software type, publisher, and IP version (IPv4/IPv6).

The rules cover a wide range of scenarios, including ICMP traffic, browser rules, built-in OS software, Windows services, multiplayer games, and third-party programs.

13- WFN (Windows Firewall Notifier)

WFN (Windows Firewall Notifier) is an open-source tool designed to enhance the default Windows Firewall by providing real-time notifications for blocked outbound connections.

It helps users monitor and manage their network activity by notifying them whenever an application tries to make an outbound connection that is blocked by the firewall.

WFN allows users to create new firewall rules directly from the notifications, giving them more control over their system's network security. The tool is lightweight and easy to use, making it a valuable addition for users looking to improve their firewall management.

14- PERFECT wall

PERFECTwall is an open-source firewall management tool for Windows that enhances the default firewall capabilities. It allows users to create and manage firewall rules easily, providing better control over network security.

Simple Features List

Easy Firewall Rule Management: Simplifies the creation and management of firewall rules.
Improved Security Control: Provides better control over your system’s network activity.
User-Friendly Interface: Designed to be straightforward and easy to use.

15- Windows Defender Firewall, PowerShell scripts/GUI tools

PowerShell scripts/GUI tools for the enterprise to harden Windows Defender Firewall via group policy (GPO). These can be used to enforce network level application whitelisting and strengthen the security posture of devices to defend against attacks such as software supply chain and can be used with privileged access workstations (PAW).