Since I had so much hassel with ZoneAlarm, I am wondering if anyone can reccommend something similar..or a way to stop ZoneAlarm causing the problems.. just ned something basic and free to stop others accessing my PC via my internet connection.. thanx for the help so far everybody.. much appreciated have a great day gemma

what is the problem with zone alarm you can configure it so it never bothers you and it still does what you want which is to keep most out it won't keep all out if you list what irritates you someone can show you how to "fix" it

Try Black Ice...Oh wait its not free, sorry, but its a good one to use, and for more money you can go buy a router, which will be the best protection. Sorry that I dont know of any other free ones other that Zone Almarm. But it should do the job as long as you have all your shares turned off.

I use Tiny Personal Firewall from www.winroute.com It runs fast even on my 486 unlike the zonelab bloatware. Give it a try. Also make sure you are running an uptodate AV software package. InoculateIT is free for personal use from: http://antivirus.cai.com/ I use it and highly recommend it

ProtectX is a utility to protect your computers TCP Ports from malicious users, it can detect when a connection is attempted, and also has the ability to perform a whois lookup on the hacker, which allows the contact details of the hackers ISP to be determined so that you can report them. The latest version of ProtectX has numerous improvements and a shareware version can be obtained from http://www.plasmateksoftware.com/protectx.htm Improvements in the latest version include full trojan detection and removal (programs allowing hackers complete remote access to your PC and its contents), internet time synchonisation, automatic reporting of the hacker to their ISP, a new cleaner interface, and much more flexibility for the power user (but still very easy to use for the average computer user). It also includes a detailed html help file, free upgrades to future versions and free technical support

Hey Caroline, you dont work for ProtectX do you? If you dont, maybe you should cause that sounded like one hell of a good sales pitch. -=vbg=-

Slade Any chance of putting my name forward then? - Ha!!!! - it's a small program I've been using for quite some time now and have had no problems with it. Heard a lot about Zone Alarm, with differing views. I've never used it - what's it like?