BlackIce Defender was one of the first personal firewalls on the market and the top dog for a long time. But newer programs such as ZoneAlarm and Norton Personal Firewall have since surpassed it in usability and effectiveness. BlackIce provides standard and dynamic protection filters that analyze network traffic and detect and block suspicious patterns. But this approach means that BlackIce sometimes blocks applications you want to use. We prefer ZoneAlarm's customizable approach to Internet security, in which you specify which applications are allowed to access the Net.
Also, to make yourself really hard to hack, disable File and Printer sharing too, and then get Zone Alarm, the free version and see how you like it. Norton Personal Firewall is good too. I dont know about Black Ice though...