which is best
 

which is best,the new firewall in windows xp service pack 2 or zone alarms firewall.
i see that you can't have both installed.and when i run gibson research's shields up.zone alarm shows all ports closed yet when i run xp's firewall shields up shows all my computer ports stealth,which is better i know.
i suppose what i am asking is would you trust xp's firewall or zonealarm's.

cheers
andy 1

Re: which is best
 

I would go for SP2's firewall, it's more powerful since SP1, has some changes done to it and can even block applications now. What do other people think? :erm:

Re: which is best
 

I'd personally go for neither, I prefer a firewall to block the suspect traffic before it reaches my PC.

Re: which is best
 

Out of those two, I think ZoneAlarm is better (*if* you manage to get version 4.5 instead of version 5.x).

But there are plenty of other Firewalls, including free ones:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=6152

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=15641

Re: which is best
 

Whilst the SP2 firewall is an improvement on the version in SP1, it does not block malware "phoning home". Zone Alarm blocks inbound & outbound traffic.

I normally take articles from the Register with a pinch of salt, but this is worth a read:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09...curity_review/

Re: which is best
 

There are issues with uninstalling ZA 4.5 on XP, as experienced by another forum member. I think the latest ZA is 5.1 - haven't heard anything bad about it but that could be because few people use ZA after the farce that was version 5 :p:

I use ZA Pro - it blocks dodgy attachments and is highly configurable.

Re: which is best
 

A cheap router will be even more effective.