True enough, but outgoing protection gives you some (relatively) early warning
that your PC has been compromised; without it, you could run for years with
malware phoning home and sending your personal data (e.g., credit card info)
to the Russian Mafia.
And, if you have multiple PCs behind a router, the inbound protection of ZA
(or whatever you like) prevents one compromised PC from spreading its virii
to the other PCs.
I've been using ZAF and ZA$ on my PCs for years. ZA is far better than
M$'s firewall on XP, and far easier that M$'s firewall on Vista, IMHO.
Your view is misguided. If you're really concerned about Internet Security
and care about your PC you need to do some reading
1. Do not work in elevated level; Day-to-day work should be performed
while the User Account Control (UAC) is enabled.
2. Familiarize yourself with "Services Hardening in Windows Vista".
3. Don't expose services to public networks.
4. Keep your operating (OS) system (and all software on it)
updated/patched.
5. Reconsider the usage of IE.
5a.Secure (Harden) Internet Explorer.
6. Review your installed 3rd party software applications/utilities;
Remove clutter, *including* 3rd party software personal (so-called)
firewall application (PFW) - the one which claims: "It can stop/control
malicious outbound traffic".
7. Activate the build-in firewall and tack together its advanced
configuration settings.
7a.If on high-speed internet connection use a router as well.
For the average homeuser it is suggested blocking both TCP and UDP
ports 135 ~ 139 and 445 on the router and implement countermeasures
against DNSChanger.
And (just in case) Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) has been superseded by
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA).
8. Routinely practice safe-hex.
Also ensure you do:
a. Regularly back-up data/files.
b. Familiarize yourself with crash recovery tools and with
re-installing your operating system (OS).
c. Utilize a real-time anti-virus application and vital system
monitoring utilities/applications.
d. Keep abreast of the latest developments.
And finally:
Most computer magazines and/or (computer) specialized websites are *biased*
i.e. heavily weighted towards the (advertisement) dollar almighty!
Therefore:
a. Be cautious selecting software applications touted in publications
relying on advertisement revenue.
b. Do take their *test-results* of various software with a
*considerable* amount of salt!
c. Which also applies to their *investigative* in-depth test reports
related to any software applications.
d. Investigate claims made by software manufacturer *prior* downloading
their software; Subscribing to noncommercial-type publications,
specialized newsgroups and/or fora (to some extend) are a great way
to find out the 'nitty-gritties' and to consider various options.
Interested? Wanna know details? Go ahead and ask
