fire wall pretection

albertross_2

If you have an infection, then malware might want to talk out, and firewalls with outbound protection (zonealarm/comodo) should prompt you to say xxx wants to start talking to the internet. But as you have found you will get popups saying svchost/alg/IE/outlook want access to the internet, most people click allow, so you are no better off if you do this, when compared to using the XP firewall.

If you have a router, that will block stuff coming in, before it touches your software firewall.

Browntoa

this is also free

http://www.download.com/3000-10435_4-10543979.html

you will get pop up's from the firewall the first time you use things like Internet Explorer and when AVG updates, you need to allow them and tick a box to always allow it (unless the programs changed , maybe from an update and it will ask for permission again)

if you are not sure what the thing is trying to access the internet than use google to find out if it is good or bad

Tao81

Sorry to hijack the thread, but what about the same OP question but for Vista? Thanks

Browntoa

Vista's Firewall is OK.....

some of the freebie ones will update at some point for vista but no worries in the meantime

Tao81

Browntoa wrote: »

Vista's Firewall is OK.....

some of the freebie ones will update at some point for vista but no worries in the meantime

That's so kind of ya :D Thanks Browntoa :beer:

BillScarab

Vista firewall is better than the one in XP but still not as good as the free ones. It doesn't block all outgoing traffic by default and is more difficult to configure.

Zone Alarm is a free firewall that works with Vista, I run it myself as I prefer it ot the inbuilt Vista firewall.

Tao81

If I download the free version of Zonealarms firewall will I have to do anything within windows vista and will this free version do everything needed re-protection, always found it excellent when used it in the past.

Anyone have any ideas on how well AVG works with Vista - or any suggestions re- best anti-virus/security softeware to use with Vista?

Thanks

superscaper

Iconic wrote: »

Do you have to switch it off ? Can't you run both at the same time ?

NO!! Running two software firewalls is very bad, they will most likely cause conflicts with each other. In fact Comodo should switch off the Windows firewall by default at installation. There would be no benefit to running two, it would not make it any more secure. Only use one firewall, only use one antivirus. Anything else is usually ok to have more than one program, eg multiple anti spyware apps.

BillScarab

Zone Alarm will switch off the built in Vista firewall.

AVG works with Vista as does Avast and Antivir, currently I'm using Antivir.