h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can anyone recommend a firewall? Free download but not zone alarm, as i've just had to uninstall that. The recent security update for Windows XP was'nt compatable with zone alarm and i ended up not being able to connect to the internet
Hopefully someone can recommend something I don't like being without a firewall.

I have Avast - it's free software and it must be good cause the husband chose it.

Oooh, sounds promising. Do you have a web address?

I only get the German sites when looking, but if you go to http://avast.com I guess you should get one in Engliah.

This seems to be the latest version:

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-4-home_pro-revision-history.html

Thanks. I'll have a look

I'd be wary about a package and not a specialist firewall.

I pay for the full version of Sunbelt firewall, but it has a free version which is nearly fully functional.

B

oh hai, just barging in. If you aren't afraid of getting your hands dirty, there's WIPFW. http://wipfw.sourceforge.net/

it's horribly light, terrifyingly fast, lurks worryingly as a background process while protecting your network... and is hoopily *not* easy to use if you're not a semi-hardcore geek...

There's GhostWall too. http://www.ghostsecurity.com/ghostwall/

which has slightly more user friendly interface. but still a bit hard to use for the computer novice...

A firewall is just a device to filter out incoming (and outgoing) network traffic to and from what you generally call your home network. And I do mean device. Actual hardware. Not software you install on your PC. I mean in you modem or router if you have one. Most decent routers come equipped with a firewall of some sort. you just have to roll your sleeves and dig into the user manual. Using your router's firewall is ALWAYS better than a software one in the same way that it's better to stop an invasion at the castle gates than at, say, a screen door. A firewall is a ridiculously simple thing! It's somewhat annoying that in this day and age you actually have to pay for so-called 'internet security' when it's all just paranoia enhancing software!

except I'm probably starting to ramble. or already have... oh dear...

you'd better stick to what Belena suggested if you aren't tech savvy.

Thanks for your suggestions

I have a firewall again now, so all is good

That's good because I confused it with the anti virus program.

I was reading that there is now a fix for the fix for Zone Alarm - http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/pressReleases/2008/LossOfInternetAccessIssue.html

I fell foul of that at the weekend. I upgraded to IE7 on Friday and everything seemed to be fine, until I switched the computer off overnight. I switched on on Saturday, managed to connect to the internet, but none of the sites I tried would load. I assumed it was a problem with my ISP, and that it would be fixed today. When it wasn't, I tried a different PC and got straight on. I found the cause and fix when I downloaded ZoneAlarm for the other PC.

I found a comment on one site that the problem doesn't happen if you try a more recent version of ZoneAlarm. The site wasn't a ZoneAlarm site, so I don't know if that's true. I'm running version 7.047 of ZoneAlarm Free, but I don't know what the latest version is. ZoneAlarm certainly don't mention the problem not occurring with later versions.

I tried the fix (removing the update) and everything's fine now. So, Venus, you can go back to ZoneAlarm, just remove the offending update.

I take it back. The fix *does* say that you can cure the problem by downloading the latest version of whichever ZoneAlarm firewall you have. That wasn't any good to me when I couldn't access the internet, though.

Hi Cheerful Dragon.
I have indeed got an updated version of Zone alarm now. A friend told me about the problem, after i had posted my question here. Having already uninstalled Zone alarm and got back on the net, i just downloaded the updated version and did'nt have to roll back the XP security update. Everything is working fine now.

PC Tools

fire threat

it works for me

I've Zonealarm too, and after the update all is well. Except I can't make Youtube videos load. I'll have to live without, I suppose, but the kids are annoyed. Anyone know how to fix that?

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Get rid of the kids?