I decided to post in this section as I think my query is more about internet security in general than one program and as you openly discuss several options here, felt it the best place to begin.

Years ago I used to use Peerguardian, understood to be fed largely by Bluetack's blocklist. I'm currently using Panda Labs firewall which is basic at best and JFirewall test to check for open ports as it can scan all 65535 ports quite quickly (and as pcflank has become so bloaty).

I read that Peerguardian blocked certain games from accessing the internet and all of a sudden it feels like I'm back to using IP Tables building a solution from scratch.

I'm interested to know what setup and features most users have found to be the simplest and fullest tools for protecting against outside attacks, Chinese WHOIS lookups and all the usual attack spam. I understand Bluetacks tools are essentially block lists running alongside a firewall, but any suggestions would be great as I'm sure we've all tried numerous firewalls, widgets and plugins over the years filling our drives up with numerous loose ends, so a nice reliable wall of security seems to be complex to setup, too open or too restrictive.

You can add Peerguardian to your existing setup without interfering with
your existing software. If any of your games get blocked you can fix it with
a click of the mouse.