Webroot Offers Free Firewall for Vista & XP (Limited Time)

October 26th, 2007

23 Comments Written by Ryan

Webroot Free Firewall 1

I received a tip the other day from “S” who was letting me know that Webroot is giving away free licenses for their firewall software. This is for a limited time only, and I’ve already requested several licenses of it for myself. All you have to do is fill out a form with your name, email, and so on. Within seconds of completing the registration you’ll receive a download link and product key in your email. That’s right, this $20 software is completely free, and it comes from the same company who makes the respected Spy Sweeper software.

I’m sure you’re wondering what I think of the Webroot Firewall. As you probably know it is pretty slim picking right now when it comes to free Vista firewalls. Previously we’ve taken a look at PC Tools Firewall Plus, Zonealarm, and an early release of Comodo 3. Comodo has always been my firewall of choice, but the final version isn’t due out until sometime in November.

I got Webroot installed on my machine today (big screenshot gallery at the end of this article), and the registration key that I was sent worked perfectly. The first thing that I noticed after installing it is that the interface is extremely clean and well organized. I didn’t feel overwhelmed, and most importantly it didn’t bombard me with messages to approve Internet access for my running applications. Why’s that?

From what I gather the Webroot Firewall learns from how you use the computer. It “automatically develops a baseline profile of your normal PC usage based on system variables such as CPU utilization, thread count, and others.” When there is any unusual activity going on you’ll be the first to know.

One of the other things that I like are the three configurable profiles that leave you just one-click away from changing your security settings. Maybe you want different settings when you have your computer at work as compared to home? Webroot makes that possible. You can even set it up to block websites, which might be just the thing you need when you’re at work and trying to be productive.

Because of the sheer simplicity of the program I would say that this is a great application to use. I didn’t have to configure a single thing after getting it installed, and I was never bothered with annoying popups. When Comodo makes its way out the door in final form I’ll be sure to compare all of the free Vista-compatible firewalls, but until then I say that Webroot is the best alternative. But you better get your license key today because the deal may not be going on much longer!

–Features–

Stealth Mode Feature
Email Protection
Advanced Packet Filtering
Malicious Process Blocking
Port Monitoring and Blocking
Custom Protection Profiles
Lock down your PC
File and Printer Sharing
Comprehensive Internet Activity Log

–Screenshots–

CLICK ANY SCREENSHOT FOR FULLSIZE IMAGE

Webroot Firewall – Free for a limited time
Thanks to “S” for the tip!

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Tags: Newly Released, Software, Applications, Features, Firewall, Screenshots, Settings, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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October 26th, 2007 at 5:23 pm Max (All-Star)

Is the key valid for a limited time (like redeem before a certain date) or is this offer valid for a limited time so I can get a key and use it later?
October 26th, 2007 at 5:25 pm Dave

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like a decent firewall. Any word on resource usage and leak testing? I’ve been relying on an old version of Kerio for too long.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:48 pm Bamboo

Does it work on Vista 64??????????????????????
Please tell me it does. We talked about this in the last firewall article, that none support vista 64.
Anybody?
October 26th, 2007 at 5:56 pm Anonymous

Vista Firewall Control
October 26th, 2007 at 7:03 pm Ryan (Author)

Max wrote:

Is the key valid for a limited time (like redeem before a certain date) or is this offer valid for a limited time so I can get a key and use it later?

I’m guessing that it is at least good for the current version, so get the serial number and download the latest installer. Other than that I don’t see any way that they can block you from using it later on. The serial is requested during setup so it’s unlikely that it uses the Internet for validation.

Dave wrote:

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like a decent firewall. Any word on resource usage and leak testing? I’ve been relying on an old version of Kerio for too long.

I haven’t been using it for too long so I can’t comment on the memory leaks, but it seems to be steady. It hovers between 5MB and 10MB of memory usage.

Bamboo wrote:

Does it work on Vista 64??????????????????????
Please tell me it does. We talked about this in the last firewall article, that none support vista 64.
Anybody?

Sorry, I don’t have a 64-bit computer to try this out on, and there is no mention of 64-bit support on their site.
October 27th, 2007 at 2:57 am Pieter (All-Star)

It seems like this firewall doesn’t support per-application policies (i.e. you can’t instruct it to either allow or prevent apps from accessing the internet). Is this true?
October 27th, 2007 at 5:43 am Dean

Thanks for the tip. I’ve been a happy user of Spy Sweeper and Windows Washer for a long time so I will give their firewall a good workout. Cheers
October 27th, 2007 at 6:24 am lars

i use jeticos free firewall, i’m extremly pleased
October 28th, 2007 at 7:31 pm Ryan (Author)

Pieter wrote:

It seems like this firewall doesn’t support per-application policies (i.e. you can’t instruct it to either allow or prevent apps from accessing the internet). Is this true?

You can choose per-application rules, that’s seen in the second screenshot which shows a list of running applications. You can right-click on each of them and specify individual rules.

lars wrote:

i use jeticos free firewall, i’m extremly pleased

Interesting…I hadn’t heard of that before, and doing a search for “jeticos” doesn’t seem to pull up any results pointing to the homepage.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:40 am lars

sorry ryan its should be jetico’s

jetico.com

Jetico Personal Firewall v.1.0 freeware
October 29th, 2007 at 6:09 am Sander

It also works on XP by the way.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:17 am Lee

Finally I installed it on my vista. So far no problems using it. Anyway an update to version 5.5.10.20 from version 5.5.10.8 was made available and I downloaded this update w/c seems to be a Setup Launcher smilar to the original installer. So my question is do I need to uninstall old version/build before installing this update or just insall it over the top? Thanks.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:48 pm Ryan (Author)

lars wrote:

sorry ryan its should be jetico’s
jetico.com

Jetico Personal Firewall v.1.0 freeware

Awesome…I hadn’t even heard of that before. I’ll be writing up a review soon on it. Thanks lars!

Sander wrote:

It also works on XP by the way.

Yep, and I mentioned that in the title. People on XP have a lot of options available to them right now though, which is why I stressed the Vista compatibility.

You should just be able to install it overtop of the old version. I didn’t see any mention of that being a problem.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:12 pm David R

Dave asked about memory testing and leakage. I installed the firewall on my Thinkpad with a Core 2 duo and 2 gigs of memory. Within 24 hours, my machine began to slow down to a crawl and checking resource usage through Task Manager found nearly a gig of memory in use (950K). I left Webroot a message asking for guidance and heard nothing.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:49 pm Ryan (Author)

David R wrote:

Dave asked about memory testing and leakage. I installed the firewall on my Thinkpad with a Core 2 duo and 2 gigs of memory. Within 24 hours, my machine began to slow down to a crawl and checking resource usage through Task Manager found nearly a gig of memory in use (950K). I left Webroot a message asking for guidance and heard nothing.

I haven’t seen anything along those lines. I’m guessing that it is a compatibility issue with another program you’re running.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:52 pm Anonymous

what about our old buddy ZoneAlarm? Does it work with Vista?
November 13th, 2007 at 7:50 pm Ryan (Author)

Anonymous wrote:

what about our old buddy ZoneAlarm? Does it work with Vista?

Yes, it does actually work with Vista as I mentioned in the article above:
[cybernetnews.com]
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 am Michele

I tried Webroot Firewall 5.5 since when this article came out. I eventually erased it right yesterday as it did not work fine for me. It’s heavy and far than being customizable according to my needs popping out alerts that shouldn’t have been shown according to the rules given. I guess that Zone Alarm is the best firewall ever… so far. Oh… I run Webroot Firewall on XP SP2 Pro.
January 25th, 2009 at 3:28 pm Anonymous

I look forward to utilitzing the protection the Comando Firewall 3 beta will provide my computer!
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:35 am SIN

hi, is this software compatible with any x64 bit version? if not, is there any that you recommend, preferably free version. thank you.