Re: XP's Firewall

Dan wrote:
<snip>

The following is an example of what Zone Alarm Professional blocked
recently:


The cheapest NAT router you can buy would have effectively blocked the scans
you referenced. Windows Firewall would certainly have blocked them.
ZoneAlarm has better reporting and is more configurable than the Windows
firewall. It is no better or no worse at stopping unwanted incoming traffic.
The fact that it is more configurable is it's main advantage and also it's
main disadvantage. In expert hands you can analyse attacks and try to
contact someone who can stop them. This is usually a waste of time but it
can be done. It is also easier to configure different levels of protection
for different networks, i.e. a laptop. It is also very easy to misconfigure
it and have little or no protection. Outbound protection is of very little
use to most people. Once something is in your computer it can do what it
wants including turning off the firewall. Current versions of ZoneAlarm make
this hard to do but the malware programmers are usually only weeks behind in
coming up with new hacks. For the average user Windows Firewall is best
because it has very few options to configure and is silent for the most
part. For the expert user ZoneAlarm may be better because it is more
configurable. Personally I use a NAT router and the Windows Firewall. I
consider myself an expert user (others may have different opinions). The
reason I don't use ZoneAlarm is because it's just one more program running
that will eventually be incompatible with something else I'm running. I see
no need for any better protection than that provided by the Windows
Firewall.

--
Kerry
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca/forum/Forum.htm




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