tlippy

Distinguished
Aug 6, 2005
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Ok guy's, which software firewall do you recommend? I've used ZoneAlarm and ZoneAlarm Pro since they came out with Norton's Anti-Virus. Someone in Tom's Community mentioned about the damage ZoneAlarm does but didn't mention what damage it causes, so what damage does it cause? PC Mag, PC World and others still recommend ZoneAlarm and Norton's Internet Security, Placing Norton's above ZoneAlarm but from experience ZoneAlarm is easier to set and does work. Someone here also put in his 2 cents for Panda's Internet Security, probably their Platinum Edition, I've heard Panda is user friendly like ZoneAlarm but dont know. So, is Panda's real good or is Nortons or ZoneAlarm Pro better? I would like some of you pro's advice on which one of the three for a new XP machine...???
 

Bob369

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Jul 6, 2005
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I used Norton before I reformatted. I think Norton Firewall is much easier to use and configure than Zone Alarm (free edition).

My PC:
Abit AX8 Socket 939 VIA K8T890
AMD Athlon 64 3200 Winchester
Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro 256 Mb PCIe
WD Raptor 37 Gb SATA
Corsair 2x512 PC3200 DDR Dual-Channel Platnium Edition
 

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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I use Kerio myself. another freebie.

I had problems with Zonealarm and bittorrent, so I switched to Kerio and found general system response was better anyway.

It also has program launch control, so it pops up and asks about every application/process as it tries to launch for the first time. Makes it a PITA to start with, but is handy if anything tries to launch later on without you knowing, because you can stop it before it runs (i.e. Spyware/Virus type stuff)

Might be worth giving it a go. I like it anyway :smile:

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<font color=red>"Life is <i>not</i> like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeńos - what you do today might burn your a<b></b>ss tommorrow."
 

Dev

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2001
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Another good alternative is etrusts EZarmor. It is basiclly zone alarm with a much better interface, and somehow a smaller footprint also.

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I want my epitaph to be: "Moved to /dev/null"