ZoneAlarm Firewall ? or Windows XP SP2 Firewall ?

[Daniel Rascoe]

I have a laptop that I use for personal use at home. It's connected to the
internet via a radio wave internet connection. I'm trying to decide whether
to use the built in firewall of WinXP SP2 or use the free firewall
ZoneAlarm. I like ZoneAlarm because it will, hopefully, stop any trojans
from calling home. I like to have lower amounts of overhead on my computer
so that it will run faster. First, does using ZoneAlarm slow my system down
any more than using Windows Firewall? If so, do you think the added
protection of ZoneAlarm is worth the slightly slower performance?

The specs of the laptop are as follows:
Dell Inspiron 8100 Notebook
CPU: Pentium 3 (1.0 GHz)
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Hard Drive: 20 GB
OS: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

Daniel

 

[Guest]

Use ZoneAlarm.

The firewall in SP2 is extremely limited. And it doesn't have any outbound
program control.

ZA will slow things down a little bit more, but you've got more than enough
computing power.

 

[DL]

Winxp firewall blocks incoming not outgoing, Zonalarm does both, can be
usefull!
Any preference is in yr domain.

 

[SlowJet]

ZA because it blocks out bound ports.
Performance is secondary to crash and burn.
Your pc is well equiped to handle a lot of work.

SJ

 

[Guest]

Spyware/Virus Removal and Prevention:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/windowsxpsolutions.htm
(Links to online virus scans on the same page)

How to optimize Windows XP, 2000, ME
for the best performance (Step-by-step Visual Guide):
http://www.fixyourwindows.com

Windows Firewall is OK if there are no ghosts in your system
ZA is one of the best (desktop) FW you can get, but it will tax your
resources.

Good Luck!