Firewall question

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

I would dump the Norton performance hog and go with Zonealarm.

"David S" <nomail@please.invalid> wrote in message
news:lui0a0h9b3a6dukn55q8f76shb6lqp5t7c@4ax.com...
> Am operating Win XP Home with firewall enabled.
> Am planning to switch to DSL with MSN amd am wondering whether it
> advisable to supplement the firewall.
>
> I purchased Norton 2004 Pesonal Firewall software, but am looking for
> aadvice before loading. I also have Zonealarm (not Pro) loaded and
> operative.
> Any thoughts please
> David
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

David,

>> Am planning to switch to DSL with MSN amd am wondering whether it advisable to supplement the firewall.

XP's ICF monitors the incoming traffic effectively. None of the outgoing traffic is monitored, means it can't block any trojans transmitting information to ouside world from your system. Thus, a third-party firewall is necessary and I use ZoneAlarm (actually EZ-Armor, which includes EZ AV and ZA renamed]

--
Ramesh - Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k
---------------------------------------
What You Should Know About the Sasser Worm and It Variants:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.asp
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"David S" <nomail@please.invalid> wrote in message news:lui0a0h9b3a6dukn55q8f76shb6lqp5t7c@4ax.com...
Am operating Win XP Home with firewall enabled.
Am planning to switch to DSL with MSN amd am wondering whether it
advisable to supplement the firewall.

I purchased Norton 2004 Pesonal Firewall software, but am looking for
aadvice before loading. I also have Zonealarm (not Pro) loaded and
operative.
Any thoughts please
David

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

"David S" <nomail@please.invalid> wrote in message
news:lui0a0h9b3a6dukn55q8f76shb6lqp5t7c@4ax.com...
> Am operating Win XP Home with firewall enabled.
> Am planning to switch to DSL with MSN amd am wondering whether it
> advisable to supplement the firewall.
>
> I purchased Norton 2004 Pesonal Firewall software, but am looking for
> aadvice before loading. I also have Zonealarm (not Pro) loaded and
> operative.
> Any thoughts please
> David
>
The easiest way to get good protection from unsolicited incoming traffic is
with a Network Address Translation (NAT) router which are now quite cheap.
Linksys, D-Link, etc are all available at various computer and office supply
stores. I turned the router's logging on and was astounded at the number of
port scans the router is blocking - anything from 1 every couple of minutes
to 10 a minute or more.

I also back this up with Sygate's free personal firewall since you want to
be able to block or know what is trying to get out of your PC. I have a
small home network and the Sygate and probably other firewalls makes
blocking the netork's Netbios traffic from the internet easy.

The router makes connecting any PC with a network card simple since it does
the logging on to the ISP so you don't have to have any connection software
on the PC. It also affords some protection if you have the firewall disabled
for any reason such as testing.

You must also run an anti-virus program as well for good protection. I
dumped McAfee and Norton in favor of free AVG.

Billh