Zonealarm firewall

blackswan2

Hi there - running Windows XP with Avast antivirus and Zonealarm firewall (Defender turned off because really slows PC down).

I like the Program level control Zonealarm gives you but it has been irritating recently, keeps telling me about a new network found and asking if I want to permit etc. and never remembers the details, also (this is an assumption) it seems to occaisonally block internet access and I have to repair the link and go allow the new network again.

Any suggestions of alternatives to Zonealarm with program level control?

blackswan2

bounce ...

esuhl

I use the Comodo free firewall. When I installed and tested it originally, it failed a leak test, but by not installing Defense+ and by putting the firewall in "custom" mode immediately after installation, it works really well.

23n1th

Can't believe people are still using zonealarm, it used to be good but not for a long time.

busenbust

I just continue to use the default Windows firewalls -- very decent in 7/

aliEnRIK

Comodos definitely top of the tree for firewalls

busenbust

I will never use Comodo as I've said before here .

closed

let your virus scanner do it's job instead, and use windows firewall if you don't want a slow pc.

full-stop

OnLine Armor (free) is an excellent FW with HIPS functionality to boot. Seems to work very well with little issues with Avast 5.x (free)

busenbust

busenbust wrote: »

I will never use Comodo as I've said before here .

full-stop wrote: »

OnLine Armor (free) is an excellent FW with HIPS functionality to boot. Seems to work very well with little issues with Avast 5.x (free)

agreed, i'd opt for Armor too instead of C.

coxy17

I have seen a similar issue on my Grandad's Windows 7 machine. The problem wasn't his firewall. For some reason a public network kept showing up as available in his network centre and the machine would try to connect to it. This would disconnect him from his home network and drop his connection. The only way to re-establish the connection to his home network was to disable the network interface and then enable it again.

It was all very bizarre and I struggled to find him a solution. The problem disappeared when we removed Adobe Photoshop CS3 which was completely unrelated.