Greetings --
WinXP's built-in firewall is fine at stopping incoming attacks, and
hiding all of your ports from probes. It doesn't give you any alarms
to tell you that it is working, though. What WinXP also does not do,
is protect you from any Trojans or spyware that you might download and
install inadvertently. It doesn't monitor out-going traffic at all,
much less block (or at least ask you about) the bad or the
questionable out-going packets.
ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are much better, and there are a free
versions available. Personally, I've been very happy with Symantec's
Norton Internet Security 2002 (NIS 2004 is now available), which
includes Norton AntiVirus, Norton Personal Firewall, parental
controls, privacy controls, and ad blocking. (Just the elimination of
many of the pop-up ads on the Internet made the price worth-while to
me.)
Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH