Firewalls
 

Anyone have any comments about which firewall they use?

I've got Norton, but recently I found that it was really screwing my machine up. Then I found out that Windows XP actually has a firewall built in! I've been running this system for three years now and I never knew about that! I've heard the drawback to that one is that it only blocks incoming information. Doesn't block programs that might end up sending your personal information to an external machine. Went to some tech message boards and the geek squads basically were saying that the XP firewall is fine for most home users. And I'm not calling them geeks out of mallice. They called themselves that.

Anyhoo, I've heard Zonealarm pro is good. Or just the free downloadable version.

Billy-Bob,I too have Norton(Symantec)and I too was told about WindowsXP firewall,but I at one time had some trouble and a friend installed another supposedly safer system,the problem was I could not get attachments from friends it was soooo safe,so we had it removed.You should be perfectly fine with Norton and WXP firewall.Just don't open anything that seems fishy :D Norton will tell you anyhow.

Firewalls Etc
 

I have three systems up and runing at my home. Two towers are doing well with Windows XP O.S. and my ever faithful (?) laptop is still limping along on the notorious ME. Limpy is about to be replaced with a new one and that will be the end of ME. (Although the millions of patches ME has sent out have somewhat tamed the Blue Screen attacks)
I run Nortons in the background all the time on all my machines. At $29.00 @ it is hard to beat especially with the automatic "live updates" which for someone like me, who is on line every few hours anyway, is a life or system saver.
One thing I do disable is the scan EMAIL being sent out. That slows up almost any system. I figure if I scan everything coming in and run a good anti virus constantly the chances of sending out a virus infected message is pretrty low.
Over the years I have used quite a few anti virus systems and never found anything I liked better than Nortons.
The architecture of the built in firewall for Windows XP is such that even running in concert with another firewall you should not have problems. Window's simply designs in a firewall for those who can't afford or think to get additional protection plus the built in does provide a pretty good level of protection and is a good marketing feature.
Firewalls almost never cause system problems-it's the users and how they adjust (or fail to set) the settings.
Woody