Best Firewall

Scott's Newsletter is comparing the current set of personal Firewall softwares available, both from a security standpoint and also ease of use for a normal user. One of the main outcomes of the study is that most of the big name products do not mesure up. It is usually the smaller products that are really good and usable.

Computerworld also has an article on this effort:

Review roundup: Slim is in for Windows desktop firewalls
You don't need a bloated security suite to get the best protection from a firewall. In fact, many of the biggest names offer less protection than simpler, lesser-known firewalls.

Scott's Newletters AV review for 2007 can be found here. (The winner was NOD32, though I still continue to use Free AVG at home and have not had any problems as yet)