After reading Miles Brignall's article in today's Guardian, I have added ZoneAlarm to my default Windows XP Professional firewall, just to be on the safe side. Should I turn off the latter, or can they work together? I got no warning messages when installing ZoneAlarm, so I'm assuming it's OK. Talia
Miles Brignall's article, Broadband ... danger in the fast lane, appeared in the Money section of the Guardian on Saturday December 3, 2005.
Gnerally it's not a good idea to have two firewalls or two anti-virus programs running, because they tend to monitor and lock files at quite a low level, and can get in each other's way. The built in Windows XP firewall is a very limited beast and may not give Zone Alarm any problems, but neither does it add anything worthwhile, so I'd turn it off.
Ny current recommendation is to run the free Kerio personal firewall and AVG Free.Both are also available in paid-for versions as well as free versions for non-commercial home users. In addition, I recommed doing regular online scans at Housecall. ZoneAlarm is a good alternative free firewall.
If you want increased online security at a reasonable price, make your broadband connection via a router with a built in firewall, or via a NAT router. In any case, a router is a much better network connection than a so-called USB modem. A four port router makes it dead easy to connect another three PCs to the net. Also, a router should stay permanently connected, so it won't matter if you plug/unplug or reboot any of the connected PCs.
