I have a copy of black ice firewall type software.  Should I install it? Anybody here use it? Good/bad?

I like it

I use Black Ice at work and Zone Alarm at home.
If its a standard free consumer version then i would download the free zone alarm version.
Much more user friendly and they seem to stealth your ports a little better than the standard black ice.
Go to a good port scanning site(www.grc.com) after you install it and run a scan to see what shows up.
Every port should be stealth ,if not then download the zone alarm freebee and try the test again.
If its a full blown version of Black Ice for business then you cant go wrong with it.

Tim

The company that I work for provides this software for its employees.  I don't know what version it is. It wont install on my computer anyway, probably because I'm still running Windows 98.

Black ice is supposed to be better for dial up connections..... high speed gets zone alarm.

Zone Alarm's better IMO. But either is better than nothing at all.

You don't need it if you have a hardware firewall (cable modem or DSL router) or WinXP (built-in firewall).

Black Ice is MUCH better protection than no firewall.

I've used both it and ZoneAlarm.  Both have strengths and weaknesses.  Neither is a perfect substitute for a hardware firewall.