Firewall

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As a user of XP, I am also a user of XP firewall. I have read so much good about Zone Alarm firewall that I am wondering whether I should make a change over, or is it possible to use it as well as XP. I believe using 2 firewalls usually lead to trouble. Thanks for any advice or opinion.
 
Having two Firewalls is like having two women = SPARKS !

I guess if you like fire (Wes ?) it's fine ;-)

-----Original Message-----
As a user of XP, I am also a user of XP firewall. I have
Click to expand...
read so much good about Zone Alarm firewall that I am
wondering whether I should make a change over, or is it
possible to use it as well as XP. I believe using 2
firewalls usually lead to trouble. Thanks for any advice
or opinion.
 
Greetings --

Well, WinXP's built-in ICF is certainly better than nothing, but
it's no substitute for a real firewall.

WinXP's built-in firewall is _adequate_ at stopping incoming
attacks, and hiding your ports from probes. It doesn't give you any
alarms, or any other kind of indication, to tell you that it is
working, though. Nor is it very easily configurable. What WinXP also
does not do, is protect you from any Trojans or spyware that you (or
someone else using your computer) might download and install
inadvertently. It doesn't monitor out-going traffic at all, other
than to check for IP-spoofing, much less block (or at even ask you
about) the bad or the questionable out-going signals. It assumes that
any application you have on your hard drive is there because you want
it there, and therefore has your "permission" to access the Internet.
Further, because the ICF is a "stateful" firewall, it will also assume
that any incoming traffic that's a direct response to a Trojan's or
spyware's out-going signal is also authorized.

ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are all much better than WinXP's
built-in firewall, and are much more easily configured, and there are
free versions of each readily available. Even Symantec's Norton
Personal Firewall is superior by far, although it does take a heavier
toll of system performance then do ZoneAlarm or Sygate.

Running two or more software firewalls simultaneously is
unnecessary and can sometimes cause conflicts, possibly negating the
protection of both. In any event, having two firewalls running
simultaneously is most certainly an unnecessary drain on system
resources.


Bruce Chambers
--
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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH


Nicole said:
As a user of XP, I am also a user of XP firewall. I have read so
Click to expand...
much good about Zone Alarm firewall that I am wondering whether I
should make a change over, or is it possible to use it as well as XP.
I believe using 2 firewalls usually lead to trouble. Thanks for any
advice or opinion.
 
Correct, you could very likely run into problems by running
two firewalls at the same time and it might not be obvious
at first. And MS's firewall is actually pretty weak in some
areas, so looking for another firewall is wise, IMO.

ZA is a decent product, and lots better than MS's, but ...
they presently have problems with their version 5. So,
if/when you donwload it, either get a previous version or
wait for version 6. They have info on that at their home
page, so that might be more current than what I am telling
you.
I would also recommend Sygate's personal FW. It's a
little more techie, but IMO better and more functional.
There are lots of firewalls out there. e-trust is another
one I use which also had virus protection built in, so
unless you have Norton or something like that already, it's
a handy package. There's nothing wrong with downloading a
few of the freebies and trying them out, but use one at a
time only.

Pop


message
As a user of XP, I am also a user of XP firewall. I have
Click to expand...
read so much good about Zone Alarm firewall that I am
wondering whether I should make a change over, or is it
possible to use it as well as XP. I believe using 2
firewalls usually lead to trouble. Thanks for any advice or
opinion.
 
I would like to reply and say that I use XP firewall and
free Zone Alarm at the same time. Zone Alarm helps me to
keep track of all outgoing things. I use the version of
Zone Alarm 4 as I have had troubles with version 5.
 
Allan said:
I would like to reply and say that I use XP firewall and
free Zone Alarm at the same time. Zone Alarm helps me to
keep track of all outgoing things. I use the version of
Zone Alarm 4 as I have had troubles with version 5.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's not impossible to do, and not guaranteed to cause
any problems. ZA version 5 has problems though, and ZA
explains it on their site, so that's worth checking out.
They were advising going back to 4 until 6 comes out.
It depends on what's happening when and who's doing
what, I guess. The real problem, IMO, is that when they do
collide, one may not recall that it could be a firewall duel
and not a real problem. I don't anymore, but I did run fw's
in parallel a few times when I was testing them out for
usability. And had no probs.

Pop
 
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