I was using the trial of Sygate, and as of today I can't use it anymore. I recall Theta saying something about a free version, but don't know where to look. Anyone able to help?

http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

You probably used the trial of the Personal Pro version. The standard Personal version is free for personal use.

This took 3 seconds in google, searching for 'free firewall". ZoneAlarm is what shows up first. I heard it's pretty good too.
That reminds me, I have to...fix...Kaspersky.

Avast

ive been useing avast for quite a while now and i have yet to get a virus... for me it works better than McAfee

its totallly free

One tiny problem, though: it's not a firewall.

no im pretty shure its a firewall

Well, I'm pretty sure that you have no idea what a firewall actually is.

ZoneAlarm is my FW of choice.

Used to use Norton Security Suite (bundled with my mobo) but that made my PC sooooo slooooow at boot-up, so I uninstalled it and tried to install something else, but it wouldn't have it due to the amount of cackar that Norton left behind. Asked them for advice and they said "You'll just have to re-install it again."

Re-installed XP and now use AntiVir Personal Classic (Freeware) and ZA along with other security progs etc.

I also found lots of problems with the installer sub system on Norton's products especially. I spend LOTS of my time trying to upgrade people's NAV, and it won't un-install, you have to use removal tools to get rid of it, and it invades your system like the pox! You usually endup having to re-install Windows Script 5.6, and sometimes other windows components to fix the stuff NAV has mangled...

I found McAfee is also pretty bloated, works reasonable, but as slow as NAV, could have faster updates too. VET Antivirus is ok with size/speed, updates, but usually can't delete anything after it's found it, Antivir is ok, reasonably small, no firewall though, Panda Antivirus looks pretty, isn't too big, but the GUI is confusing like NAV to find what you want, and it's painful to configure on a LAN, and has no manual overides for programs.

I quite like AVG, it used to be buggy as hell, but now that it's matured a bit, it's got regular updates, it's small, and very fast, easy to use layout, the update server craps out occasionally, but not enough to annoy you too much, and thier pro version has a firewall, I don't think it's as good or configurable as Zone Alarm, but does a better job than most products including Windows offering.

My favorite is Zone Alarm Internet Security, this product ROCKS. It's not for the faint of heart though, as it requires you to have reasonable windows knowledge to know what it's going on about, but is very configurable in a LAN/WAN environment, and great for website content blocking as well. The firewall is awesome, the only down side of seen so far is that it's registration module sometimes corrupts, and you have to re-install it, and other minor bugs similar, that also require a '/clean' install. The other thing is it's antivirus scan is a bit slow.

If you want small, fast, secure, and free I find that AVG free along with Zone Alarm free works fantastic for most home users, not as suitable for a LAN environment, but it can be fooled into working on LAN's if you add the IP addresses of the other PC's in your LAN as trusted. It's only caveat is that if you use MS's Internet Connection Sharing it will quite often do strange things for no apparent reason, like block internet access on PC's in the LAN when the ICS machine's screen saver turns on etc...

If you want small and fast but not quite as effective, try Tiny Personal Firewall. A good idea to secure your PC, and test out it's security holes is to visit www.grc.com . The Gibson Research Centre has some small apps that allow you to turn of big security holes like UPnP, Messenger Service, DCOM services, and close all Windows Sockets except the crucial ones with Socket Lock.

It also has a link that allows you to 'hack' your PC using 'Leak Test' to see how well your firewall is doing to block intrusions, it's embarrasing how badly NAV and McAfee do in this one...

If your really serious in testing how good your PC is at 'stealthing' itself on the net you might want to try WinPcap, if you haven't heard of it before, and haven't had much sys admin experience then I'd recommend steering clear of this program though, as you can get yourself in alot of trouble with this program too...

Hope some of that was useful.

use ZONEALARM!!!!!!!!! it is the best out there, my PC and my Dad'd PC have it, I think it's free too, maybe not.