Rating: 
Summary: Bloated, Krufty, Kluge-filled...
Review: A home user really doesn't need a firewall that does anything more than shut down unused ports (port 23, 69, etc.)
Expensive firewalls like this one just try to do way to much (like scanning for Remote Access Tools and the like) and result in using up all of your system rescources and slowing down your machine. This will slow your system down and slow down the rate at which you can surf the web. I recommend getting a smaller less intrusive firewall that just sits unobtrusivly in the background and does its job of closing off ports and nothing more (I prefer Sphinx Firewall but Tiny Firewall is also very good). (...)
Rating: 
Summary: very good if you already know how to use a firewall
Review: A Software firewall has one huge advantage over hardware firewalls. That is, you can easily update the software to get the latest protection automatically and free from Norton. This is not so simple with hardware firewalls and people who think their hardware firewall is protecting them may not realize how important 'security updates' are. On the other hand, you really need to tweak the settings for a few weeks in Norton's Firewall before it works for you the way you want it to. This takes some patience and know-how on the the part of the user. I like this product very much, but it is not for the average user.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy it if you're running Win 98
Review: After I installed this product on my Windows 98 system, my previously fleet computer began taking three to five minutes just to boot up. I accessed the Symantec support web site (they charge for individual support), and found that many other people are experiencing even worse problems with the software.
When I tried to uninstall the program, it was as though Hal had taken over my computer. Firewall refused to uninstall without an "access number" -- only "my supervisor" could make such changes. Unfortunately, I AM my supervisor. I finally was able to uninstall using a separate program on the Firewall CD that I knew of only after an hour of searching through support messages on the Symantec site. Even after uninstalling, my system is still extremely slow to boot up. I do not recommend this product.
Rating: 
Summary: GIVE IT A PASS MARK
Review: Although there is a litany of drawbacks associated with "Norton Personal Firewall 2002", it is still worth having. The software will cater for your basic data defence. However, the sad truth is that any battle-tested cyber-intruder or hacking whiz kid will have enough water to douse this Firewall. Another fact is that unless your PC's processing speed is second only to the velocity of light, expect Firewall 2002 to slow down web-page loading.
But that said, my personal experience indicates that the pros of having this inexpensive protection still outweighs the cons.
Rating:
Summary: Not better than Conseal
Review: Conseal PC firewal at signal9.com is still to me the best firewall. Too bad they don't offer it on CD though. If you must have a CD with the program then get this or Guard Dog, if you don't mind the download I advise getting Conseal.
Rating:
Summary: Firewall hangs up, hogging 97% of the computer's power
Review: Firewall has annoying bug: Occasionally the Windows Task Manager shows SYMPROXYSVC.EXE at 97+ percent. In other words, the Firewall is hung up deader than a doornail - which gives any other program(s) you are trying to run only 3 percent of the CPU power. That alone would cause me to rate this product at 4 stars. Because, I have found how to temporarily fix the problem (temporary until problem occurrs again). I am rating the product at one star because I have investigated the problem somewhat. Others have reported the same problem. Semantec has known about the problem for several months and has done nothing about it (yet). I am disappointed at Semantec's service. I wish to remain anonymous because Symantec probably has as many lawyers as good programmers.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Product
Review: For the online users, Norton Personal Firewall 2002 keeps hackers out and personal data safe. It gives you peace of mind that your PC is secure from online intrusions and your privacy is protected from unauthorized online access. Norton Personal Firewall automatically hides your PC from hackers, stops "spyware" and Trojan horses from connecting to the Internet, and configures firewall rules for the most popular online applications. Regular Internet updates help keep you protected against the latest online hacking threats.
Rating:
Summary: So far so good
Review: I bought this program when I had to return ZoneAlarm Pro2, which kept periodically completely locking down my system, possibly due to conflicts with Netboost or Norton Anti-Virus. I liked the interface better than the Norton firewall, and another thing I liked is that it would tell you the actual IP address of an incoming computer that was attempting to do anything, and would give you the actual filename of the program on your system for anything that was trying to get out. Norton doesn't do that, unfortunately. However, I was forced to return ZoneAlarm because of the conflicts. Norton's product says it's is tested and integrated with their own Anti-Virus software, and so far I haven't had any of the problems I had with ZoneAlarm. I hope it stays that way, but I've only been using it for a couple of days. By that time, however, ZoneAlarm had rendered my system completely useless for accessing the net. As I was a professional system administrator for 15 years, and have a lot of experience with Windows NT, I may try to troubleshoot somemore and see if I can figure out what went wrong with ZoneAlarm, since if I could get it to work okay, I'd stick with that. However, for now Norton is working well and it's certainly a good product too. If you're a system administrator like I was, the fact that it's supposed to integrate smoothly with Norton's Anti-Virus software is a major selling point in its favor, since system stability is of overriding imporance in a server environment.
Rating:
Summary: OK Protection For Personal Surfing But...
Review: I have a Windows XP home edition computer with dial up internet access. For my own personal web surfing, it is OK. But I have to disable the software when working at home because it prevents me from accessing our company's computer network via the dial up virtual private network. It is easy to disable the product. But then, I loose the firewall protection. So this product's usefulness is somewhat limited for me. But it does work OK for personal web surfing.
Rating:
Summary: Good, Very configurable, but slows down the system...
Review: I have been using it with XP for 6 months now. No major problems. It does tend to slow the loading of web pages and other network traffic (not as bad as web pages). You can end up spending a lot of time customizing it if you want high security. You can allow individual sites varying degrees of access to run scrips. It STOPS POP-UP WINDOWS cold! This is my favorite feature! If it did nothing but stop pop-ups it would still be worth the $$.
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