Wilson said:
I just installed the Norton Antivirus 2005. At the end there is an option
that I can choose Norton's firewall instead of Windows XP sp2 firewall.
Should I stay with Windows firewall? Which one is better, or they works the
same? Thanks
Opinions differ. The two types of firewalls are different. Windows
Firewall protects you against incoming communications, but not outgoing
communications from worms, trojans, spyware, or other crud that is already on
your machine. This means that a hacker cannot penetrate your system, but a
rogue program already on your machine can "phone home," i.e. initiate an
outgoing communication to whoever caused the spyware, worm, trojan, etc. to
be installed on your computer (leading to all sorts of bad things). Norton
blocks outgoing communications as well. Thus, Norton is more protective than
native Windows.
Personally, I prefer Windows Firewall and a proactive approach designed to
keep the crud from getting on my machine in the first place instead of
(essentially) trying to shut my front door after the skunks already get
inside my house. If the crud is already on your machine, the Norton-type
firewall merely protects you against one of its symptoms or consequences
without addressing the underlying cause. It has also been my personal
experience that the more protective third party firewalls (such as Norton)
come at a slight price in CPU usage, memory usage, and (sometimes) conflicts
with legitimate software. Others say that they don't see any difference, and
prefer the extra layer of protection that Norton gives you.
Despite my personal preferences, I would say that if you are a security
novice, you are probably better off with Norton or other protective third
party firewalls. If not, then you are better off with Windows Firewall and
using other solutions, e.g. a good standalone antivirus program, perhaps
antispyware software (I'm currently using the Microsoft beta software), a
fully up to date XP system with SP2, and (perhaps most important) good habits
of computing that will enable you to avoid downloading or installing the crud.
Ken
