Two firewalls?

shopaholic_09

I've been using Norton Internet Security 2010 for everything, including the firewall for a while now but when I switched on the computer the other day, a bubble came up about windows security. I can't remember what it said exactly but it was just a red icon and said something like it wasn't protected and click to switch it on. I did that and now it's showing that the windows firewall is on. I can't remember if I ever switched it on when I installed Norton.

My norton firewall and everything else is all green, every Norton thing is switched on and always has been, but now I'm wondering if it's dangerous to have both the windows firewall on and the Norton firewall too. I'm sorry if this is a really stupid question, but I don't really understand firewalls and things and I'm worried about viruses etc. Is it ok to have both of them running?

fwor

You really shouldn't have two running. At best both will take up resources and slow things down, and at worst they may conflict with one another.

You should be aware that there are several other things that might have been the reason for the Windows security warning - for example if you have Windows Update turned off, or if your antivirus data is out of date. Without knowing exactly what the error message said, it's not possible to rule out either of those.

shopaholic_09

Thanks for replying. Should I turn the windows firewall off then? and just leave the Norton firewall on. I think that's how I had it set up before.

I wish I could remember what it said. I think it might have happened after a windows update. I just haven't been using the computer much recently. Is there any way I can find out what caused it? I'm worried that my computer is not safe.

fwor

I confess I don't know anything about the Norton firewall, but the Windows built-in one is very basic, so I would start by turning that off. As has been done to death in a recent thread, if your PC is behind a router, you ~probably~ don't really need to be running one anyway, and almost certainly you will not come to any harm running with none for a short while.

Depending on what version of Windows you have, you ~may~ be able to use the System Event Viewer to find a log entry for the security warning, though you may have to trawl back a long way to find it by now, as typically quite a lot of events get logged...

[Deleted User]

Hi,

are you using vista, if so have a look in control panel > security centre, and see what it say there about firewall settings, this might work for xp as well.

shopaholic_09

How do I find and use the System Event Viewer? I'm using Vista.

Ok, now I'm really confused. I just had a look at control panel > security > security centre and in the part where it says security essentials. First it said it was off and then it changed to on a few seconds later before I'd even pressed anything.

Firewall, Automatic updating and Malware Protection are all on. "Other security options" says OK. All are green. I clicked on the firewall option in Security centre and it now says that the Norton firewall is on and the Windows firewall is off.

In the Malware Protection, it says Norton is on and Windows Defender is off. Is that ok? I'm not sure what it means.

I still can't figure out why that bubble popped up. I don't think it ever has before. I think it must have had something to do with the windows update. I really don't know.

aliEnRIK

fwor wrote: »

I confess I don't know anything about the Norton firewall, but the Windows built-in one is very basic, so I would start by turning that off. As has been done to death in a recent thread, if your PC is behind a router, you ~probably~ don't really need to be running one anyway, and almost certainly you will not come to any harm running with none for a short while.

Depending on what version of Windows you have, you ~may~ be able to use the System Event Viewer to find a log entry for the security warning, though you may have to trawl back a long way to find it by now, as typically quite a lot of events get logged...

Norton firewall is pretty poor ~
http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

[Deleted User]

Hi,

your set up seems fine, much the same as mine, except I don't do automatic updates, I prefer to see what's being added first.

For system event viewer, control panel > performance and information tools > advanced tools > view performance.

shopaholic_09

Thanks. I've had a look in the system event viewer, I can't find the exact thing about the error, but reading it is like another language to me! There are a few things in the performance that say "warning" "critical" and "error". Are they anything to worry about?

I just checked the security centre when I switched the computer on again and it was showing as firewall not on until a few seconds later when it came on but the Norton icon in the corner is always green so it must be working! It's confusing.

fwor

shopaholic_09 wrote: »

There are a few things in the performance that say "warning" "critical" and "error". Are they anything to worry about?

Without knowing exactly what the wording is, it's not possible to say for sure. But when I last used Windows I can recall looking in the event log and finding warnings that meant nothing to me - but the PC worked fine anyway!

shopaholic_09 wrote: »

I just checked the security centre when I switched the computer on again and it was showing as firewall not on until a few seconds later when it came on

That is quite normal behaviour. It seems that the first thing it does is to check whether Windows' own measures are switched on, and when it finds they aren't it takes a little while to figure out that something else is doing that function instead. Not something to worry about.

shopaholic_09

I'm glad to hear that it's normal. It's not something I'd looked at before so I wasn't sure if it was supposed to do that. Thanks for explaining.

My computers been working ok, so I think maybe I was reading too much into those error codes!

Thanks for the help everyone.