Ok, so I've been a bit of a bad boy, as it were.

Thanks to Zonealarm and vista not liking each other (At least at the time I installed vista!) I've reverted back to windows firewall, which obviously sucks.

Time to get a new firewall.

I don't mind paying a reasonable price, if the firewall really is worth it. I'm behind a router with a built in firewall anyway, but I've noticed a few ads seeping through as of late, and so I want to ensure that these buggers aren't actually on my PC.

So the question - what firewalls do you guys use/recommend? Is there anything new on the market worth looking in to?

I don't use a firewall. If you're having issues with ads, get the adblock plus plugin for Firefox and subscribe to a list. These are automatically updated to block ads.

Unless you're getting random popups even when you're not online. If that's the case, your ass is infected with something and you need to see a doctor. Or, er, wipe windows or something.

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

No reason to have a software firewall AND a router. The router is better. Ad's having nothing to do with your firewall since they all come in on port 80, the port you use to surf the net. Satis has your solution.

Nothing major getting through, just ad-block plus not doing is job as good as before I guess.

Certain things are acting slower than normal - but I already started the clean up for that. A few scans here and there and things are ok, though I'll still do a wipe once I've backed up everything I need to.