Firewall for Vista

economiser

I've just taken delivery of a new Dell. It comes with a McAfee Security package which I want to dump asap. Bad past experience. I have used the free Zone Alarm firewall in the past but understand it cannot be used with Vista. Any recommendations for an alternative. Do I have to disable or uninstall McAfee before installing anything else?

BillScarab

Zone Alarm works fine with Vista, I've been using it for months.

Your best bet is to download ZA and whatever anti-spyware and AV software you want while McAfee is running. You can also download the Mafee removal tool. Then disconnect from the net, uninstall Mcafee and install the replacements.

Seagull

Zonealarm gets my vote too. PC Tools do one too, I've tried it but I prefer ZA.

Conor_3

TBH, you don't really need a third party firewall with Vista as the built in one works properly unlike XP's.

economiser

BillScarab wrote: »

Zone Alarm works fine with Vista, I've been using it for months.

Your best bet is to download ZA and whatever anti-spyware and AV software you want while McAfee is running. You can also download the Mafee removal tool. Then disconnect from the net, uninstall Mcafee and install the replacements.

Thanking everyone for their help.

From where could I download the McAfee removal tool? I remember I had a lot of difficulty trying to remove it from a previous computer. Never did get rid of it completely.

BillScarab

I'm pretty sure it's on McAfee's website somewhere. A quick google finds these links

Personally I would install a 3rd party firewall as the inbuilt Vista one doesn't block all outbound traffic by default. So although it is capable of doing it by default it doesn't. It is also not the easiest firewall to configure. Have a look at this for some more info and how to enable outbound protection in the Vista firewall.