Is the firewall included in the Avast suite better than the Windows firewall? I heard that they are about the same.
no they are not the same. For a start, AIS firewall offers outbound protection out of the box. And then like most third party firewalls in Windows, it offers a more user friendly interface. Let me explain: Windows firewall itself, the “basic” interface, doesn’t offer many options, it just runs. While in Vista and Seven there’s an advanced firewall interface that most users don’t use, where indeed outbound protection can be configured, rules created etc…but it’s not user friendly at all.
And according to a post from Lukor (avast developer), this firewall has the ability to auto-decide depending on what the AV tells (clean or not clean). That is something that I didn’t know, and haven’t been able to verify so far. Not that I have doubts, but my system is clean
Thank you for this answer. I’m trying to decide if I want to go from Avast Antivirus Pro 5 to the suite.