Most of the people who have Windows based computers rely on the Windows Firewall that comes with the operating system itself. This in-built firewall is enabled by default and offers some basic protection in the form of controlling network permissions of various services or programs. But if you use your computer for commercial or professional work, then this basic firewall may not be enough for you as you need enhanced protection from hacking attacks and malicious programs. A free program called Atelier Web Firewall Tester can help you check your current firewall software and decide which of the firewall protection works better on your PC.
Atelier Web Firewall Tester performs a number of tests to see if it can fetch data from the internet without triggering the firewall alerts. It tries many different techniques used by malicious programs to send and receive data from the internet, for example, it invokes the default web browser to carry out the data transfer tasks.
You can click on the small buttons labeled from 1 through 6 to run the different tests. Each test is a little different and the Firewall Tester gives one point to the firewall software if it blocks the data transfer. If the firewall is unable to block the data transfer, then the Firewall Tester gets one point. Ideally, the firewall should get all the 10 points but a good enough firewall is one that gets at least 8 points to its credit.
If you firewall software performs badly in these tests carried out by the Firewall Tester, then perhaps you need to remove your old firewall software and install a new one. There are many free firewall products available for Windows, for example, Comodo firewall and ZoneAlarm firewall are both free and very effective firewall protections available for Windows.
You can get the Atelier Web Firewall Tester from http://www.atelierweb.com/products/firewall-tester/.