If you think having a firewall is a totally secure way to protect your PC then you’d be wrong. Firewalls are under constant attack from bots, trojans and other threats that try to implant software on your computer or take control of your PC. The ability of the firewall to repel these attacks depends on various factors but there is a simple way to test it.
Atellier Web Firewall Tester basically pounds your firewall with data to see just how strong it really is. It uses six different tests which probe the key areas which attacks usually exploit. These tests include the most common attacks which include hijacking your browser, accessing Windows Explorer, trying to retrieve admin passwords and exploiting proxies. Although it can’t guarantee the security of your firewall, it throws-up some very interesting results when making comparisons.
The developers have posted an interesting table of comparisons between the major firewalls out there. It’s interesting to note that Windows Firewall – which many users rely on – scored by far the lowest marks. Fortunately, free solutions such as ZoneAlarm and Jetico Personal Firewall proved the most effective.
