>A side from being free, why is it better than say Norton's personal firewall.

I wouldn't say that it's necessarily better. However, "free" is a feature to me, it doesn't require a lot of configuration, and it appears to do the job. The main thing I'm looking for is the ability to lock down ports, and Zone Alarm does that. Open ports are what the script kiddies are going to be looking for, and that's the biggest hit I have seen.

Keep in mind that I use Proxy Server, and that I'm certainly no expert on the subject of firewalls, so take it FWIW.