Firewall Query.
 

Hi, any advice gratefully received. I am running XP pro and at the moment the only firewall I have is the one that comes with XP. Is it worth me downloading and running the free one from Zone Alarm? If I do this should I turn off the Windows firewall or leave that running as well.

I ran the Zone Alarm one on my old PC and remember it working well, it would notify me every time a programme tried to contact the internet, but the problem was that it wasn't always obvious to me whether it was a programme I wanted or needed to allow to make contact or not. Is there some sort of list or "idiots guide" of programmes which you should allow access and those which you shouldn't?

Hope this makes some sense!

Re: Firewall Query.
 

If you've SP2'd your machine then the improved firewall it provides will be adequate as a no-frills level of protection. If you're particularly paranoid and you like your firewall to do things (as opposed to sitting quietly in the background) then you could go for the freebie ZA but it's a bugger to remove and some (not all) users find it problematic with some programmes.

Re: Firewall Query.
 

If I didn't have a NAT router then I'd definitely use the XP SP2 built-in firewall - it's much better than ZA IMO.

Re: Firewall Query.
 

I have found Sygate http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm
very good and easy to use.

Re: Firewall Query.
 

Ok,
I think I'll stay as I am then, but thanks very much for the reassurance. You can't put a price on peace of mind!

Re: Firewall Query.
 

For the perpetually paranoid, the windows inbuilt firewall has very limited functionality as you cannot prevent already installed programs from accessing the internet as it only protects from inbound traffic. I use ZA Pro with combined anti-virus on my laptop and have had no problems at all with any of the programs I use.
I have also used the recommended Sygate personal firewall and found this also to be very good.
__________________

This link may be of use to decide on the relative merits of the inbuilt XP firewall http://www.brienposey.com/kb/windows_xp_firewall.asp. This is not definitive but gives a realistic appraisal of its effectiveness in my view.

Re: Firewall Query.
 

If you are running XPSP2 then it will tell you that it is not a great idea to run two firewalls and ask whether you want to turn of XP FW or ZA.

Re: Firewall Query.
 

The XP firewall can sometimes go SkyNet and start blocking traffic at random, or totally. It also seems to disable network connections too.

Removing ZA - don't double-click the icon to uninstall, use Run... enter the uninstall program name (including full path), then add <space>/clean at the end. That will ensure all the registry entries are removed.

Re: Firewall Query.
 

That's the trouble with these computer thingies, you can never get a simple answer to a simple question! Very interesting article, but I'm now confused as what to do for the best. I suppose I'll just have to accept that life is never as straightforward as you would like it to be; make a decision and go with it!

Re: Firewall Query.
 

:D

What's right for one person may not be right for another, and different experts have different opinions. I would never recommend an on-access virus scanner - waste of disk I/O and leads to general instability. Other people would recommend them :shrug: You have to read all the advice and make up your own mind.