Which firewall would you recommend
 

Have installed on xp zonealarm, reason behind the question is that.

I had one(1) ie windows open, one(1) on xnations and another was a icq. message box with conversation with my father in sydney.
I had left the pc for some short length of time to watch a movie.

Anyhow I had returned and noticed an unanswered msg and my father
was no longer logged in. As normal I would answer some questions so
he will be able to read when he wakes up..

Where my concerns started to get heated was while I was typing and
hitting alt-s after typing a few lines of text in the icq.
A new ie window was opening and my norton popped up and flaged a
virus. So now its doing a full scan.. But I still question the present firewall, some 7516 port on icq is not being blocked or some weird thing is already installed itself and tonight was the awakening... :(

May I request please of your ideas on firewalls and how well would you
back your recommendation please.

Many thanks in advance.

I would recommend a router, you can can easily block ports manually that you are aware of being unprotected. As far as software firewalls go directly installed on Pc's I've only had experience with ZoneAlarm and it seemed to be quite good. Also if you have SP2 installed it will help alot but I wouldn't recommend SP2 because alot of software isn't yet compatible with it.

Click here for a list of software that does not currently work with MS SP2 :(

Thank you very much Sweet. I read the above page and will stick away
from SP2 as my Norton AntiVirus is listed there. Even tho the service expires on 19/9/2005 so I might look into your router recommendation.

;)

Obviously the main purpose is usually for multiple machines, if you have a laptop or tablet pc I'd go with a wireless router (802.11g is the fastest and latest, just in case you weren't aware). :xthumbs: But the firewall part helps quite a bit as well.

I can't stand Norton, got it free with my new laptop and it does nothing but mess things up. I would also recommend a hardware solution, way better to keep this stuff separated from your PCs.

cheers,
Luke

You mean to keep the virus software on the hub and work off the hub that is connected to the net?

The best firewall I used was Tiny Personal Firewall V2.

I didn't like version 3 I found it to cumbersome.


You should get "hijackthis" and use it to scan a known clean computer.
Then you can put all the found entry into an ignore list.
It should be empty after that.

Then next time you scan if you find a registry entry you will know it shouldn't be there unless you recently installed something.

Also get spybot
and spywareblaster

The three I mentioned are donationware and free to download.

http://merijn.org/
is where you can get the last three

I really like zone alarm..

Thanks thuma, I had found that above url from thehun's gazette page.
I went there soon after it had happened. I knew he has a support page.
Right now, I am just starting to check out that Personal Firewall V2.

G'day Pendo, welcome to Xnations.
Myself I still seem to like it also.

It's actually version 2.something

let me know if you can't find it.

It's freeware anyway

Thanks thruma cause the one is was checking out is here

Kerio Personal Firewall
pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22932,00.asp

Will keep you posted.

Many thanks mate.

Maybe I'll have a look at that zonealarm too.
Everyone says it's great.

I have a feeling TPF does more though