Linksys is now owned by a company you may have heard of... Cisco.
i have had good luck with the model rv042 but it is not cheap. most of the linksys stuff is not bad.
Netgear routers suck out loud (although their switches are pretty good). i had one in downtown Cincy and the trees in Kentuky started leaning towards the river.

So what Hardware Fire Walls to you like / have faith in / use / have experience with?

Any you would not consider / fall sort / would NOT recommend / don't like?

the link you provided rated ZA (pro) in the top three of the ones tested???

As the saying goes, the one-eyed is king among the blind

Ok, thing is, Win PFW is not supposed to block outbound traffic at all so it does not fail in something it does not claim to do.
And, yes, I was assuming he was using the free version (I have yet to meet someone using the pro but that may just be me).
The free one really does score very low, more along the three worst if you look at the other graphs.
But that is not what matters.
Thing is, these are all well-known and -documented leaking methods. As the last site update was two years ago one can only hope the situation has improved but I wouldn't bet on it.
My point is/was that if there is at least one of these well-known methods that do get through, the whole idea of effectively filtering outbound traffic is nullified.
God knows how many less known or 0-day methods there may be so all a PFW can achive is blocking programmes that are honest about their desire to send to the net, and those ususally provide an option to turn that behaviour off (which is the better solution anyway).
And if you cannot trust the software you use to access the net, how can you trust that SW at all?
What other functionality may be there that you do not desire, yet haven't got to known yet?
Best to not use such software at all then (if you are concerned which you must be if you want to block it somehow).

Sure, my point here is that it's pointless.
Ok, A PFW is good to block inbound traffic (which Windows PFW does achieve) but not for anything else.
If you are using a router, you can do without a PFW, but, as it comes with no fees, you may just leave Win PFW up and running.
Getting an alternative (and maybe even paying for it) gives you a false sense of security and also costs you money for little in return.
So why do it?

Ok, it has been several years I have been using ZA (yes, I admit it, but that was also back then when I did not have a router and Windows did not provide a PFW ) so my memory may be wrong.
It was just a guess basically, plus, I am not so sure you cannot configure it to block referrers (or otherwise mess up the config).

Certainly shares my view of the matter

I mean, sure, you can use a PFW if you really like and have some resources to spend but don't get caught in the illusion you may be "save" now or "invulnerable" (really hate the new Norton ads for exactly that, making the user believe they could do anything now without having to use their brains).

http://www.firewallleaktester.com/tests.php

Can you elaborate on your opinion to go without his software firewall at all?

I use ZA (suite) and i have no issues downloading - ZA doesn't block referers.

I have rarely been gotten - once or twice in 5 years and then it was probably my fault ...
I live dangerously since i can reload unattenddedly hee hee
none of my clients who use it in conjuction with a gateway has ever been compromized.

Note: software firewalls are inherently flawed because the nasty is already at your PC, so the nasty is halfway home to start with.
A hardware firewall / gateway is always prefered, and a combination of the two is better.

Best bet is to trash can ZA completely (it has way too many security holes to be effective anyway) and to only rely on XP SP2's built-in PFW - that is enough to block hackers from gaining access to your system.
And ZA cannot effectively prevent programs from "phoning home" anyway (http://www.firewallleaktester.com/).

What needs to be different, to avoid:
"Leech Warning
To make an end to the never-ending leeching problem, I had to set up a download restriction, which prohibits you to download the DriverPacks unless you are using any of the valid download links present on this website.

If you are using the download links available on this website, you may want to disable certain firewall options which may be blocking referrers, and therefore redirecting you to this page incorrectly.

Proceed to DriverPacks downloads overview"

Guess it has to do with DDoS attacks on the download server?

What needs to be done?
WinXP SP2
ZoneAlarm
Windows standard stuff (FireWall, Defender, ...)
AVG anti-virus
animated gifs turned off
FlashSwitch - Flash normally off
Google pop-up blocker

TIA