Firewall keeps on turning off.

freaky_stuff

Iv had my laptop just over a year now and know little about the hardware side. But when i did buy it i did get advice on what to install for security, to which i was told AVG and Zone Alarm (both the free versions).

Now both of these had seemingly worked well together, untill i had a small red shield appear telling me the computer was not protected as there was no fire wall. when clicking on that the security centre came up and as there was no option to switch on Zone Alarm, i have manually had to switch on the Vista Windows Firewall.

I thought that they may have been a problem with Zone Alarm, so i uninstalled and re-installed it again. But theres been no difference and i still have to manually switch it every time i start up the Laptop.

Now am i right in thinking that as i have zone alarm installed, i do not need the windows firewall. Can anyone advise me on what may be the problem and how to solve it.

Any help would be much appreciated.

aliEnRIK

Id uninstall zonealarm for good and either use the inbuilt Vista one or another 3rd party one (Id advise using PC TOOLS firewall personally)

DCFC79

You only should have 1 firewall turned on so have either zonealarm or vista on, does the vista firewall turn itself off

aliEnRIK

My bad. Missread what the OP had put. You dont use 2 firewalls as DCFC has said. As long as Zonealarms running its fine (Vista usually wont realise it IS running so puts up an alert)

freaky_stuff

thanks for youe responses, but i may have confused you.

What i was trying to say is that i have zone alarm and that is the firewall i wish to use. But if i do not keep on turning the firewall on, it says i am not protected and there is nothing telling me that the zone alarm is acting as the firewall.

aliEnRIK

Youd know if zonealarm is running at bootup as it would show in the taskbar bottom right if it was running
If it isnt but set to load up at bootup then my only suggestion is to remove it and use something else as otherwise your computers wide open at bootup

freaky_stuff

zone alarm is in the taskbar at the bottom and i know its working as the pop up always appears asking for my permission to allow access to websites.

Ive done a bit of searching on the net and i have come across discussions about windows not detecting another firewall (in this case Zone Alarm).

i think i may just get someone i know to have a look at it, but i just wanted to ask on here to see if there was a simple resolution.

But thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond.
Much appreciated

aliEnRIK

As I said before, windows seems to miss a lot of other firewalls so if its there and working then youve nothing to worry about