Meet Windows Firewall Notifier, the best "firewall" for Windows.

I've always been a Windows user and i've always struggled with security stuff figuring out what was the best security suite and/or the best combination of antivirus and firewall. I've tried a lot of different software (e.g. Kaspersky, Avira, Bitdefender, etc) but no one completely satisfied me in terms of performances, UI and functionalities and moreover the greatest were paid.

However in the last year Windows Defender changed a lot and became much better as the built-in Windows Firewall did. I'm actually using Defender as main antivirus but Windows Firewall still lacks a user friendly interface and an interactive mode that let the user choose wether to allow internet access to specific apps or not. I recently met WFN aka Windows Firewall Notifier that perfectly fill the gap and let you use Windows built-in firewall properly.

WFN relies on the built-in Windows Firewall and adds functionalities such as:

• Real time connections monitoring
• Connections map
• Bandwidth usage monitoring
• Notification popup for unknown outgoing connections

The last one is the one i prefer most and turns Windows Firewall in a real firewall software. Unlike TinyWall, WFN display a popup notification as soon as an unknown application (i.e. one for which Windows Firewall doesn't have a rule) tries to access the network.

You can choose to allow/block internet access globally temporarily or permanently creating a rule. If needed in the advanced tab you can fine tune the rule specifying for example the protocol (i.e. TCP/UDP), the destination address etc.  

To enable popup notificaton, go to firewall settings and choose Block and prompt for outbound connections (be sure to run the main application as administrator).

WFN is actually in alpha stage and it's begin actively developed but it's already pretty stable and usable. You can download it from the official web site.