After the reboot, when you start the program, it will ask you to enter registration code. You click on the appropriate button and you find out that the firewall has started working. In the bottom left corner of your screen (if your taskbar is at the bottom) you will see an Alert Window (see the screenshot on the left). You can put a tick on the “Create Rule / Don’t ask again” box and click the “Allow” button to continue. You will be taken to the registration page, where you will be required to enter your e-mail address as a minimum to register. The unlock code will be sent to your e-mail address. If you do not go through the registration, the program will work as an evaluation version for 10 days.
There are few configuration options. Everything is set up and it is not possible to make detailed configuration, even for intermediate-level users. You can only change a little bit about the installed programs and their permissions and a few cosmetic other changes. The Expert Mode in the configuration does not make any sense. In the Expert Mode you can make some configuration, in the Easy Mode, you are told to switch to the Expert Mode to make changes. That’s it.
After installing Ashampoo’s Firewall, I took a test drive and dived to the underground websites on the Internet. It was surprising to see that there was no log about the attempts that the websites did to access my computer. All the information in the logs were just time stamps of my attempts to connect these sites: I type the address, hit Enter and it is logged. It was also surprising to see that I received to attack from these websites for Ashampoo where Internet Exoplorer 7 was busy with closing the pop-up and pop-under windows and asking me about whether or not I want to install the ActiveX Control from these sites. Either these sites have chosen the light and became the good guys or something was wrong. Why am I using a Firewall if the malicious sites can get through and it is Internet Explorer that is warning me?
Ashampoo’s Free Firewall has little additional features in addition to its main job. You can access them under the “Tools” menu on the left. These are Autostart Manager, which allows you to control which programs are started during the Windows start-up, Process Information, which you can see all the processes running, Internet Cleaner which clears all your Internet history and IP Spam Blocker which stops spam that is sent via the internal Windows messaging service.
