ZoneAlarm vs win XP firewall (1 Viewer)

[Andrew_A_Paul]

I have been running the Win XP firewall. I have a few friends that use zone alarm. Is the windows firewall worth much, or would i better off disabling the windows firewall and going to zone alarm?

 

[JamesHl]

With zonealarm you get to control your outgoing traffic, but as far as overall protection from external threat you're probably about the same. ZA is a big hassle, IMO, but once you get its rules list populated pretty well you only have to jack with it periodically.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Do you trust Microsoft to make anything secure?

Rhetorical question.

 

[Chas_T]

Andrew,

Another choice in the marketplace is Sygate, which has a free download. I used ZA for years and had problems with it when I converted to broadband and tried Sygate and it's worked very well.

Perhaps it was my personal lack of expertise with ZA that gave me problems, but try as I might, could not get it to work properly on my small network here at home.

I've never used the MS product on a consistent basis, but as Rob has written, "Do you trust Microsoft to make anything secure?"

Try them both (ZA/Sygate) as they are free downloads and see which one you like better.

 

[Tekara]

hehe, microsoft is insecure due to it's popularity, a cracker would think himself cooler to crash 1000's of windows machines versus only a couple hundred linux machines ;p.

well, anyway, I'm not a big fan of software firewalls, they are pretty much as fallible as the OS your running. But I do run Zone alarm to control and monitor outgoing traffic on my networked computers. it's amazing all the little things you can catch if you pay attention.

well, my 2 pennies. . .

 

[Andrew_A_Paul]

Well i know very little about internet secuirity/firewalls etc... I was just curious because i had ZA on and looking at the log reports there were a few things from my ISP and a lot of other things, but since i dont know much about this topic i dont know what are just things not to worry about (like tracking activity say from amazon) or something that i dont want 'peeking' at my computer.

 

[Scott L]

When XP's firewall is on I can't trade files between computers.

I never ran a firewall and I've had 2 folders appear on my HD that were full of viruses and worms.

 

[John_Berger]

Rob is completely correct. I have a LAN behind my DSL firewall to control the incoming connections, but I use Zone Alarm to control the outbound connections. It works like a champ. I disagree completely that it's a hassle. Every now and then a new connection dialog box appears, but that's about it.

Zone Alarm also allows you to have a trusted IP zone. (XP's might, but I refuse to use XP.) With that you can put your LAN as a trusted IP zone and you'll never have inter-PC connectivity issues.

 

[todbnla]

I don't find it a hassle either, works fine for me too. I am using ver 3.1.395 and since I started it on 7/02 it has blocked 3228 intrusions, 656 of these were rated high risk intrusions by the software.

 

[JamesHl]

I was just saying it's a hassle to install, and they don't have a free version anymore, do they? It can also be troublesome to uninstall.

The best option, really, is a hardware firewall.

 

[Carlo_M]

Zone Alarm still has the free version. And to make it the least hassle free while retaining good security, I usually set my trusted zone and internet zone to High, but make Program Control set to Low so it learns how a program uses the internet rather than asks you each time. More secure would be to Med where it has to ask you the first time a program wants to access the internet, and then you choose whether to allow it or not, and click on "Remember my answer" for this program. A little more hassle, but I think it's worth it for the extra piece of mind.

At home I have ZA + a Netgear router w/ firewall and I pass True Stealth mode on Shields up!

 

[Rob Gillespie]

microsoft is insecure due to it's popularity

Their software is insecure because it's insecurely written. It gets exploited more because it's popular.

Of course, it gets worse when they release patches only to later revise them because they weren't. tested properly the first time.

I use their stuff all the time, but I'll never be convinced that they take security anywhere near as seriously as they do 'user friendliness'.

 

[Chas_T]

James,

Here ya go...

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conten...eeDownload.jsp

 

[Andrew_A_Paul]

I turned off the XP firewall and will just stick with ZA. But as Tood said, with the high risk blocks, what the difference between high risk and medium risk? One of the logs shows a high risk on my computer, but its for Zone Alarm. Others that i go to more information for say its nothing to worry about.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

You can download a free app called ZoneLog which will examine your ZoneAlarm log file and give you more meaningful info.

http://zonelog.co.uk/

 

[Kirk Gunn]

So true. The OS could be locked down and fairly secure out of the box, but MS Support Centers would get flooded with calls. So... they just open it up for easy setup and networking.

It's got the security of a screen door, but what the heck.

 

[JamesHl]

but MS Support Centers would get flooded with calls

Not for $30 for a one incident support call, they wouldn't. Or whatever ridiculous fee they're charging these days. You don't get free support with their products.

Or free phone support, at least.