Which is the better firewall?

[HistoryFan]

Which is the better firewall, the one that comes with XP Home SP1, or
the free version from ZoneAlarm?

 

[Chris Lanier]

Zonealarm.

 

[Gordon Burgess-Parker]

Zonealarm.

The only drawback with ZoneAlarm (the free version) is that it doesn't
support ICS.....

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

The native firewall only blocks incoming traffic. A regular third-party
firewall monitors both incoming and outgoing traffic. This is particularly
useful in detecting system intrusions - the firewall will tell you something
already installed on your system is trying to "phone home". ZA is ok, but
it's not the only one out there:

http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
http://www.tinysoftware.com/home/tiny2?la=EN

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

WinXP's built-in firewall is fine at stopping incoming attacks, and
hiding 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
most pop-up ads on the Internet made the price worth-while to me.)

You can compare several firewall solutions, some of them free,
here:

The DSL Zone Your Broadband Solution Source
http://thedslzone.com/Software.html


Bruce Chambers

--
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having both at once. -- RAH

 

[HistoryFan]

I believe Microsoft will be updating the XP firewall when they release
SP2. It is supposed to have outbound scanning. I got this info from Paul
Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows:
http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/40535/40535.html

 

[Papa]

You are talking about software firewalls. Something else you might want to
consider are hardware firewalls, such as are included in many routers.

 

[mrtee]

So you will wait 6 to 12 months for an update to the XP firewall?

Take a look at www.agnitum.com/download/ (Outpost 1.0 (free)) I think that it is better than the all the others.

--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| I believe Microsoft will be updating the XP firewall when they release
| SP2. It is supposed to have outbound scanning. I got this info from Paul
| Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows:
| http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/40535/40535.html
|