Ernie,

Having both Zone Alarm and XP firewalls activated is overkill and might be
causing the problems. Zone Alarm is superior to the XP firewall. I suggest
deactivating the XP firewall. (Of course a router with the hardware
firewall solution is the best.)

John D.


At 12:23 AM 12/11/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Emie wrote:
>
>>A customer with P4 2.4GHz system has both Zone Alarm and WinXP/Home
>>firewalls activated.  He's experiencing problems with his Internet
>>activities (typical when ZA blocks incoming signal from accessing his
>>System.)  I can make adjustments to his ZA security settings but I thought
>>one firewall is enough for a System, or is it?  How good and reliable is
>>XP's FW versus ZA's FW?  Is installing ZA to XP (Home or Pro) an overkill?
>>I'm trying to convince a customer that the root of his problems is, he has
>>both firewalls running.  I would appreciate inputs to this subject.  TIA.
>>(Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving Day to *all* PCSoft Listers!!)
>>
>>Emie DelRosario
>>
>>                The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
>>               Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
>>              with the OpenOffice CD...  at a great price!!!
>>              http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml
>>
>While Dean Kelly's answer was great (the customer assists with
>determining which FW is better) there is something missing with the
>XPFW. Yes, it blocks inbounds but it cannot block an outbound. If a
>trojan got in, the XPFW has no features to prevent it from sending
>something out, whereas ZA is designed to prevent an outbound unless it
>is already identified by you as being authorized or it pops up a message
>window stating that "'trojan 123.exe' is trying to access the internet.
>Do you grant access?" Then the customer will know that something illegal
>is trying to transmit out into the net. Most likely, there is a conflict
>  occurring with both FWs active, but according to all of the write-ups
>I've read, it is recommended to turn off the XP FW if you have ZA.
>
>Just my 2 cents.
>
>Jean Bourvic
>
>              The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
>                     support at our newest website:
>                          http://freepctech.com

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