Hello, Just wanted to know if anyone can recommend a good firewall as well as a good anti-virus program. I'm pretty much a novice to all of this and know some firewall apps. can get complicated. Just want to protect my computer that's still enroute to me and want to be prepared when it arrives. I've heard Zone alarm has had some problems especially during uninstall, etc. I'm almost computer illiterate so.... Anything about "smoothwall" firewall or others? This is my specs: - WIN XP - Intel Pentium 4 Processor at 2.40GHz - 512MB DDR SDRAM at 333MHz - 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 TI 4200 Graphics Card with TV-Out - 60GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive 7200RPM - Symantec Norton Antivirus - 90 day trial Any help that you pros could provide would be much appreciated!!

Don't let the ZONE ALARM UNINSTALL procedure scare you. A day or so ago, I posted the directions here in the SECURITY AND VIRUS FORUM to properly remove the PRO version, as there is a PRO TRIAL and you should try the PRO, instead of the FREE anyhow. If you follow the directions, it is not difficult. As for AntiVirus, I have always used NORTON, as their updates are complete and most important timely and I can't say I've had a problem with Norton Anti Virus. And it runs good for me with Zone Alarm PRO. Also, GRISOFT AVG FREE is a very nice AV product, but then again the updates MAY not be as complete and the conveniences and easy use ability is the difference in cost: $0 for AVG and Norton costs a few dollars. And some viruses it has NOT been able to eradicate for friends, yet NORTON managed on a different machine, same virus, but with success. That's just one example I personally am aware of.

I use Norton 2003 Pro. I love it. It runs very smoothly and very fast at all times nicely in the system tray. I have only been using it about 2 weeks now, but from what I have seen so far, I really would recommend it. -Jonathan

Don't use zone alarm! it's a torture. the developers are incredibly dumb. there's a bug in zone alarm (always has been, never fixed), which causes the reservation of ports, which are not released until next reboot. in other words, if you restart your IIS server, for example, it won't work till next reboot, unless you change the server port, because zone alarm won't release it. I found an incredibly large thread on one of the forums, hundreds of people complained about this behavior there, but zone alarm developers don't give a phuck. the restart problem is annoying, but the consequences are even graver: if zone alarm doesn't let the port go, and you stop your server, the server will try to force-shutdown. consequence: the system becomes unstable and will crash in a couple of minutes. now we come to something else: there's a bug in winxp, which causes the destruction of the registry, if the system was not shutdown cleanly. doesn't happen all the time, but often enough. if this happens, you won't be able to start your computer, unless you have a backup of your registry (system restore) and know how to restore it, and unless you have software like ntfs pro for dos: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307545 you see, all this is really complicated, and I write this to scare you, but not because I am evil, but because I want to prevent you from making a big mistake. so don't install zone alarm, otherwise you will have millions of problems: problems I encountered: za doesn't let the ports go: -if you install programmes like coldfusion server, it has to shutdown IIS to install itself. because za won't let the port go, installation will take very long, because coldfusion will wait for IIS, and IIS can't do anything because of zone alarm. besides, IIS might crash, as reported above, and as indeed happened in my case. -registry might be corrupted: happened too, after IIS crashed once after I tried to restart it, but za has reserved the port and stubbonly refused to let it go. after the destruction of the registry I couldn't start winxp any longer, had to use an update, but didn't have one and nothing worked, and that all just because of the phucking za za uninstall programme sucks. crashed my computer za on win98 sucks. you change your network card drivers and next time you boot you get a blue screen. meaning going to safe mode and fixing the registry by hand. You think you can cope with this? even if you can, even if you are an expert, why would you do it? you don't need the trouble. you will say, maybe, that you don't have IIS or other servers, so no problems. wrong- you certainly have some server on your system, be it edonkey, kazaa, winmx, apache, IIS or whatever. as soon as you have some server, you are in danger. let's say you start edonkey, but za has already reserved the port it uses for some other server. it won't let it go till next reboot, meaning you will get a low id. because ZA always intervenes, it never lets you alone, it's like a phucking mother-in-law :) Also don't use Norton firewall. it's not dangerous, but it's totally useless. I tested it and you know what? it let half of programmes access the internet without asking me for permission. what kind of firewall is that? actually norton firewall is based on a russian firewall called adguard or something like that, it was a really cool firewall, but then norton bought it and totally phucked it, now it's totally useless Just install Sygate Personal firewall pro. I have been using it since I uninstalled zone alarm, and NEVER had any problems. absolutely perfect firewall: secure, stable, user-friendly, no conflicts with other applications

I am using the free Sygate Firewall, and it is also good, when I test it, it is perfect and blocks everything. I feel safe with it. I have been using the free Sygate for at least 4 months after just having too many problems with ZA, works good with Windows Me and XP

Sygate Personal Firewall will not block OUTGOING applications properly if you run Adsubtract Pro. Check out this forum thread: http://forums.sygatetech.com/showthread.php?s=415f2430208c66b18a36afe30f848357&threadid=3612 I went back to Zone Alarm 3.1 (free) and have had no problems. I was pissed when I found this security flaw and Sygate seems slow to fix it.

I don't like Adsubtract Pro, use webwasher.com prog instead, and Sygate has no problems with it :)