I am currently reviewing Personal Firewalls for an educational institution where the users have to administer their own workstations. Since the budget is tight, i am looking into FWs that allow free use for not-for-profit or educational institutions. GoldTach 1.6 FREE fits this requirement.

The first impression is positive. An easy configuration wizard guides the user through inital setup. But this concludes the goodness. The interface is a cluttered bubblegum mess. The pop-ups asking for user input are some kind of comic style lightning framed icons with a time limit to react to the FW question. The information given to the user is scarce and incomplete. Attempts to configure the FW beyond the setup wizard are try and error, an interface similiar to Full Throttle's, the graphics adventure, comes to mind. A hand and three knobs? Pardon me, and no pop-up help either. Clicking the thumb offers a configuration interface that is raw at best. I didn't venture any deeper, since configuring rules is so painful, so i can't judge on the actual firewall qualities. Maybe they are good, but they are totally unaccessible.

Conclusion: it's free in the sense of free beer. It has a promising beginning but fails horribly in the daily-use department. Firewalls are important tools for day-to-day use and at least they shouldn't puzzle the user with an unusable interface. Try BartWare or Securepoint instead.