Comparison of firewalls
Firewall software
Table:
Firewall

License

Cost and usage limits

OS

Avast Internet Security

Proprietary

Paid

Microsoft Windows

Comodo Internet
Security

Proprietary

Free

Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista x32/x64, XP x32

Intego VirusBarrier

Proprietary

Paid

Mac OS X 10.5 or later; on an Xserve

Kaspersky
Internet Security

Proprietary

Paid / 30 day trial

Windows unknown versions x32/x64

Lavasoft
Personal Firewall

Proprietary

Paid

Windows unknown versions x32/x64

Microsoft
Forefront Threat
Management
Gateway

Proprietary

Discontinued

Windows unknown versions x64

NetLimiter

Proprietary

Paid

Windows 10, 8, 7 x64

Norton 360

Proprietary

Paid

Windows unknown versions x32/x64

Online Armor
Personal Firewall

Proprietary

Discontinued

Windows unknown versions x32/x64

Outpost
Firewall Pro

Proprietary

Discontinued

Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP x32/x64

PC Tools
Firewall Plus

Proprietary

Discontinued

Windows unknown versions x32/x64

Sygate
Personal Firewall

Proprietary

Discontinued

Windows unknown versions x32

Windows Firewall

Proprietary

Included with Windows
XP SP2 and later

Windows versions x32/x64

ZoneAlarm

Proprietary

Free / Paid

Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista x32/x64, XP x32

Netfilter/iptables

GPL

Free

Linux kernel module

nftables

GPL

Free

Linux kernel (>=3.13) module

Shorewall

GPL

Free

Linux-based appliance

PeerBlock

GPL

Free

Windows 8/8.1, 7, Vista x32/x64

NPF

BSD

Free

NetBSD kernel module

PF

BSD

Free

*BSD kernel module

Using the accompanying table along with the supporting evidence listed at the end.

Answer the following question: What are the costs and usage limits of the firewall from the company that had previously developed and distributed security and optimization software for the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms ? Output only the correct answer as {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}.

A software license is a legal instrument ( usually by way of contract law , with or without printed material ) governing the use or redistribution of software . Under United States copyright law , all software is copyright protected , in both source code and object code forms , unless that software was developed by the United States Government , in which case it can not be copyrighted . Authors of copyrighted software can donate their software to the public domain , in which case it is also not covered by copyright and , as a result , can not be licensed . A typical software license grants the licensee , typically an end-user , permission to use one or more copies of software in ways where such a use would otherwise potentially constitute copyright infringement of the software owner 's exclusive rights under copyright .
An operating system ( OS ) is system software that manages computer hardware , software resources , and provides common services for computer programs . Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time , mass storage , printing , and other resources . For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation , the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware , although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it . Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer - from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers . The dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 82.74% . macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place ( 13.23% ) , and the varieties of Linux are collectively in third place ( 1.57% ) . In the mobile ( including smartphones and tablets ) sector , Google Android 's share is up to 70% in the year 2017 . According to third quarter 2016 data , Android 's share on smartphones is dominant with 87.5 percent with also a growth rate of 10.3 percent per year , followed by Apple 's iOS with 12.1 percent with per year decrease in market share of 5.2 percent , while other operating systems amount to just 0.3 percent . Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors . Other specialized classes of operating systems , such as embedded and real-time systems , exist for many applications .
Avast Antivirus is a family of cross-platform internet security applications developed by Avast for Microsoft Windows , macOS , Android and iOS . The Avast Antivirus products include gratis and paid versions that provide computer security , browser security , antivirus software , firewall , anti-phishing , antispyware , and anti-spam among other services . As of 2017 , Avast is the most popular antivirus vendor on the market , and it had the largest share of the market for antivirus applications .
Proprietary software , also known as closed-source software , is non-free computer software for which the software 's publisher or another person retains intellectual property rights - usually copyright of the source code , but sometimes patent rights .
Microsoft Windows , commonly referred to as Windows , is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families , all of which are developed and marketed by Microsoft . Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry . Active Microsoft Windows families include Windows NT and Windows IoT ; these may encompass subfamilies , e.g . Windows Server or Windows Embedded Compact ( Windows CE ) . Defunct Microsoft Windows families include Windows 9x , Windows Mobile and Windows Phone . Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20 , 1985 , as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ( GUIs ) . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world 's personal computer ( PC ) market with over 90% market share , overtaking Mac OS , which had been introduced in 1984 . Apple came to see Windows as an unfair encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa and Macintosh ( eventually settled in court in Microsoft 's favor in 1993 ) . On PCs , Windows is still the most popular operating system . However , in 2014 , Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android , because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones . In 2014 , the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold . This comparison , however , may not be fully relevant , as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms .
Comodo Internet Security ( CIS ) is developed and distributed by Comodo Group , a freemium Internet security suite that includes an antivirus program , personal firewall , sandbox and a host-based intrusion prevention system ( HIPS ) .
Intego is a Mac security software company . The company was founded in 1997 . The company creates Internet security software exclusively for Mac OS X and macOS , including : antivirus , firewall , anti-spam , backup software and data protection software . Intego currently has offices in the U.S. in Seattle , Washington and Austin , Texas , and also offices in Paris , France and Nagano , Japan . All of Intego 's products are universal binaries , and are supported in several languages : English , French , Japanese , German , Spanish and Italian .
macOS ( /ˌmækoʊˈɛs/ ; previously Mac OS X and later OS X ) is a series of proprietary graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001 . It is the primary operating system for Apple 's Mac computers . Within the market of desktop , laptop and home computers , and by web usage , it is the second most widely used desktop OS , after Microsoft Windows . macOS is the second major series of Macintosh operating systems . The first is colloquially called the classic Mac OS , which was introduced in 1984 , and the final release of which was Mac OS 9 in 1999 . The first desktop version , Mac OS X 10.0 , was released in March 2001 , with its first update , 10.1 , arriving later that year . After this , Apple began naming its releases after big cats , which lasted until OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion . Since OS X 10.9 Mavericks , releases have been named after locations in California . Apple shortened the name to OS X in 2012 and then changed it to macOS in 2016 , adopting the nomenclature that they were using for their other operating systems , iOS , watchOS , and tvOS . The latest version is macOS Catalina , which was publicly released in October 2019 . Between 1999 and 2009 , Apple sold a separate series of operating systems called Mac OS X Server . The initial version , Mac OS X Server 1.0 , was released in 1999 with a user interface similar to Mac OS 8.5 .
Mac OS X Leopard ( version 10.5 ) is the sixth major release of Mac OS X ( now named macOS ) , Apple 's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers . Leopard was released on October 26 , 2007 as the successor of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger , and is available in two editions : a desktop version suitable for personal computers , and a server version , Mac OS X Server . It retailed for $ 129 for the desktop version and $ 499 for Server . Leopard was superseded by Snow Leopard ( version 10.6 ) . Leopard is the final version of macOS to support the PowerPC architecture as Snow Leopard functions solely on Intel based Macs . According to Apple , Leopard contains over 300 changes and enhancements over its predecessor , Mac OS X Tiger , covering core operating system components as well as included applications and developer tools . Leopard introduces a significantly revised desktop , with a redesigned Dock , Stacks , a semitransparent menu bar , and an updated Finder that incorporates the Cover Flow visual navigation interface first seen in iTunes . Other notable features include support for writing 64-bit graphical user interface applications , an automated backup utility called Time Machine , support for Spotlight searches across multiple machines , and the inclusion of Front Row and Photo Booth , which were previously included with only some Mac models . Apple missed Leopard 's release time frame as originally announced by Apple 's CEO Steve Jobs . When first discussed in June 2005 , Jobs had stated that Apple intended to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007 . A year later , this was amended to Spring 2007 ; however on April 12 , 2007 , Apple issued a statement that its release would be delayed until October 2007 because of the development of the iPhone .
Xserve is a line of rack unit computers designed by Apple Inc. for use as servers . Introduced in 2002 , it was Apple 's first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Server in 1996 . In the meantime , ordinary Power Macintosh G3 and G4 models were rebranded as Macintosh Server G3 and Macintosh Server G4 with some alterations to the hardware , such as added Gigabit Ethernet cards , UltraWide SCSI cards , extra large and fast hard drives etc . and shipped with Mac OS X Server software . The Xserve initially featured one or two PowerPC G4 processors , but later switched over to the then-new PowerPC G5 , transitioned to Intel with the Core 2-based Xeon offerings and subsequently switched again to two quad-core Intel Nehalem microprocessors . The Xserve can be used for a variety of applications , including file server , web server or even high-performance computing applications using clustering - a dedicated cluster Xserve , the Xserve Cluster Node , without a video card and optical drives was also available . On November 5 , 2010 , Apple announced that the Xserve line would be discontinued on January 31 , 2011 and replaced with the Mac Pro Server and the Mac Mini Server .
Kaspersky Internet Security ( often abbreviated to KIS ) is an internet security suite developed by Kaspersky Lab compatible with Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. KIS offers protection from malware , as well as email spam , phishing and hacking attempts , and data leaks . Kaspersky Lab Diagnostics results are distributed to relevant developers through MIT [ clarify ] .
Adaware , formerly known as Lavasoft , is a software development company that produces spyware and malware detection software , including Adaware . It operates as a subsidiary of Avanquest a division of Claranova . The company offers Adaware in three editions , one free and the other two , Pro and Total , commercial . Other Adaware products include Adaware Ad Block , Adaware Web Companion , Lavasoft Digital Lock , Lavasoft File Shredder , Lavasoft Privacy Toolbox and Lavasoft Registry Tuner . Adaware 's headquarters are in Montreal , Canada , having previously been located in Gothenburg , Sweden since 2002 . Nicolas Stark and Ann-Christine Åkerlund established the company in Germany in 1999 with its flagship Adaware antivirus product . In 2011 , Lavasoft was acquired by the Solaria Fund , a private equity fund front for entrepreneurs Daniel Assouline and Michael Dadoun , who have been accused of selling software that is available for free , including Adaware antivirus prior to acquiring the company itself .
Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway ( Forefront TMG ) , formerly known as Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server ( ISA Server ) , is a network router , firewall , antivirus program , VPN server and web cache from Microsoft Corporation . It runs on Windows Server and works by inspecting all network traffic that passes through it .
NetLimiter is a client-side traffic shaping , monitoring and firewall ( computing ) software for the Windows operating system . Unlike most traffic-shaping utilities , which are based on centrally managed hardware , NetLimiter is a software-only solution . This has the advantage of being less expensive to deploy , but can result in being more difficult to manage its use across more than one computer . [ citation needed ] While it has a significant market among more technically minded computer users , in medium-to-large networks it becomes difficult for administrators to maintain multiple copies of configuration files . [ citation needed ] It is , however , useful for simulating slow links between departments showing how the applications will work when deployed to slower sites . [ citation needed ] It is often lumped together with other free or shareware in articles that present the reader with 'essential ' applications and poweruser-type utilities .
Norton 360 , developed by Symantec , is an all-in-one security suite for the consumer market . It was first released in 2007 , but was discontinued in 2014 ; its features were carried over to its successor , Norton Security . In 2019 , Symantec , under its new corporate name NortonLifeLock , began promoting a NEW Norton 360 as a product replacement for Norton Security .
Online Armor Personal Firewall is a firewall originally developed by Australian company ( ( Tall Emu ) ) , until the program was sold to Emsi Software GmbH ( now Emsisoft Ltd ) . The program provides protection on a Microsoft Windows operating system from both inbound and outbound attacks . There are three editions of this product :
Outpost Firewall Pro is a discontinued personal firewall developed by Agnitum ( founded in 1999 in St. Petersburg , Russia ) .
PC Tools ( founded in 2003 ) , formerly known as WinGuides.com , was a software company acquired by Symantec in 2008 ; the new owner eventually discontinued the PC Tools name . Company headquarters were in Australia , with offices in Luxembourg , the United States , United Kingdom , Ireland and Ukraine . The company had previously developed and distributed security and optimization software for the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms .
NortonLifeLock Inc. ( formerly known as Symantec /sɪˈmænˌtɛk/ ) is an American software company headquartered in Tempe , Arizona , United States . The company provides cybersecurity software and services . NortonLifeLock is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S & P 500 stock-market index . The company also has development centers in Pune , Chennai and Bangalore . On October 9 , 2014 , Symantec declared it would split into two independent publicly traded companies by the end of 2015 . One company would focus on security , the other on information management . On January 29 , 2016 , Symantec sold its information-management subsidiary , named Veritas Technologies ( which Symantec had acquired in 2004 ) to The Carlyle Group . The name Symantec is a portmanteau of the words syntax and semantics with technology . On August 9 , 2019 , Broadcom Inc. announced they would be acquiring the Enterprise Security software division of Symantec for $ 10.7 billion , after having attempted to purchase the whole company . The sale closed November 4 , 2019 , and subsequently the company adopted the NortonLifeLock name .
Windows Firewall ( officially called Windows Defender Firewall in Windows 10 ) , is a firewall component of Microsoft Windows . It was first included in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 . Prior to the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 in 2004 , it was known as Internet Connection Firewall . With the release of Windows 10 version 1709 in September 2017 , it was renamed Windows Defender Firewall .
ZoneAlarm is an internet security software company that provides consumer antivirus and firewall products . ZoneAlarm was developed by Zone Labs , which was acquired in March 2004 by Check Point . ZoneAlarm 's firewall security products include an inbound intrusion detection system , as well as the ability to control which programs can create outbound connections .
Netfilter is a framework provided by the Linux kernel that allows various networking-related operations to be implemented in the form of customized handlers . Netfilter offers various functions and operations for packet filtering , network address translation , and port translation , which provide the functionality required for directing packets through a network and prohibiting packets from reaching sensitive locations within a network . Netfilter represents a set of hooks inside the Linux kernel , allowing specific kernel modules to register callback functions with the kernel 's networking stack . Those functions , usually applied to the traffic in the form of filtering and modification rules , are called for every packet that traverses the respective hook within the networking stack .
The GNU General Public License ( GNU GPL or GPL ) is a widely used free software license that guarantees end users the freedom to run , study , share , and modify the software . The license was originally written by Richard Stallman , former head of the Free Software Foundation ( FSF ) , for the GNU Project , and grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition . The GPL is a copyleft license , which means that derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms . This is in distinction to permissive software licenses , of which the BSD licenses and the MIT License are widely-used less-restrictive examples . GPL was the first copyleft license for general use . Historically , the GPL license family has been one of the most popular software licenses in the free and open-source software domain . Prominent free-software programs licensed under the GPL include the Linux kernel and the GNU Compiler Collection ( GCC ) . David A. Wheeler argues that the copyleft provided by the GPL was crucial to the success of Linux-based systems , giving the programmers who contributed to the kernel the assurance that their work would benefit the whole world and remain free , rather than being exploited by software companies that would not have to give anything back to the community . In 2007 , the third version of the license ( GPLv3 ) was released to address some perceived problems with the second version ( GPLv2 ) which were discovered during the latter 's long-time usage . To keep the license up to date , the GPL license includes an optional any later version clause , allowing users to choose between the original terms or the terms in new versions as updated by the FSF . Developers can omit it when licensing their software ; the Linux kernel , for instance , is licensed under GPLv2 without the any later version clause .
Linux ( /ˈlɪnəks/ ( listen ) LIN-əks ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel , an operating system kernel first released on September 17 , 1991 , by Linus Torvalds . Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution . Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries , many of which are provided by the GNU Project . Many Linux distributions use the word Linux in their name , but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software , causing some controversy . Popular Linux distributions include Debian , Fedora , and Ubuntu . Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland , and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma . Distributions intended for servers may omit graphics altogether , or include a solution stack such as LAMP . Because Linux is freely redistributable , anyone may create a distribution for any purpose . Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture , but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system . Linux is the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers , and the only OS used on TOP500 supercomputers ( since November 2017 , having gradually eliminated all competitors ) . It is used by around 2.3 percent of desktop computers .
nftables is a subsystem of the Linux kernel providing filtering and classification of network packets/datagrams/frames . It has been available since Linux kernel 3.13 released on 19 January 2014. nftables is supposed to replace certain parts of Netfilter , while keeping and reusing most of it . Among the advantages of nftables over iptables is less code duplication and more throughput . nftables is configured via the user-space utility nft , while legacy tools are configured via the utilities iptables , ip6tables , arptables and ebtables frameworks . nftables utilizes the building blocks of the Netfilter infrastructure , such as the existing hooks into the networking stack , connection tracking system , userspace queueing component , and logging subsystem .
Shorewall is an open source firewall tool for Linux that builds upon the Netfilter ( iptables/ipchains ) system built into the Linux kernel , making it easier to manage more complex configuration schemes by providing a higher level of abstraction for describing rules using text files .
PeerBlock is a free and open-source personal firewall that blocks packets coming from , or going to , a maintained list of black listed hosts . PeerBlock is the Windows successor to the software PeerGuardian ( which is currently maintained only for Linux ) . It blocks incoming and outgoing connections to IP addresses that are included on blacklists ( made available on the Internet ) , and to addresses specified by the user . PeerBlock mainly uses blacklists provided by iblocklist.com .
NPF is a BSD licensed stateful packet filter , a central piece of software for firewalling . It is comparable to iptables , ipfw , ipfilter and PF . NPF is developed on NetBSD .
The Berkeley Software Distribution ( BSD ) was an operating system based on Research Unix , developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group ( CSRG ) at the University of California , Berkeley . Today , BSD often refers to its descendants , such as FreeBSD , OpenBSD , NetBSD , or DragonFly BSD , and systems based on those descendants . BSD was initially called Berkeley Unix because it was based on the source code of the original Unix developed at Bell Labs . In the 1980s , BSD was widely adopted by workstation vendors in the form of proprietary Unix variants such as DEC Ultrix and Sun Microsystems SunOS due to its permissive licensing and familiarity to many technology company founders and engineers . Although these proprietary BSD derivatives were largely superseded in the 1990s by UNIX SVR4 and OSF/1 , later releases provided the basis for several open-source operating systems including FreeBSD , OpenBSD , NetBSD , DragonFly BSD , Darwin , and TrueOS . These , in turn , have been used by proprietary operating systems , including Apple 's macOS and iOS , which derived from them , and Microsoft Windows , which used ( at least ) part of its TCP/IP code , which was legal , however without giving due credit . Code from FreeBSD was also used to create the operating system for the PlayStation 4 and further .
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution ( BSD ) . It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked . It continues to be actively developed and is available for many platforms , including servers , desktops , handheld devices , and embedded systems . The NetBSD project focuses on code clarity , careful design , and portability across many computer architectures . Its source code is publicly available and permissively licensed .
PF ( Packet Filter , also written pf ) is a BSD licensed stateful packet filter , a central piece of software for firewalling . It is comparable to netfilter ( iptables ) , ipfw , and ipfilter . PF was developed for OpenBSD , but has been ported to many other operating systems .
The Berkeley Software Distribution ( BSD ) was an operating system based on Research Unix , developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group ( CSRG ) at the University of California , Berkeley . Today , BSD often refers to its descendants , such as FreeBSD , OpenBSD , NetBSD , or DragonFly BSD , and systems based on those descendants . BSD was initially called Berkeley Unix because it was based on the source code of the original Unix developed at Bell Labs . In the 1980s , BSD was widely adopted by workstation vendors in the form of proprietary Unix variants such as DEC Ultrix and Sun Microsystems SunOS due to its permissive licensing and familiarity to many technology company founders and engineers . Although these proprietary BSD derivatives were largely superseded in the 1990s by UNIX SVR4 and OSF/1 , later releases provided the basis for several open-source operating systems including FreeBSD , OpenBSD , NetBSD , DragonFly BSD , Darwin , and TrueOS . These , in turn , have been used by proprietary operating systems , including Apple 's macOS and iOS , which derived from them , and Microsoft Windows , which used ( at least ) part of its TCP/IP code , which was legal , however without giving due credit . Code from FreeBSD was also used to create the operating system for the PlayStation 4 and further .