firewalls, etc.

[jaawood]

Hi, I am just wondering what you guys think about internet security, and if it is wise to run a firewall or not. I am behind the school firewall here at college, but I don't know how secure it actually is. Should I put a firewall on my computer? Best brands...Norton, Zonealarm, any others?

Thanks

[NWEng]

There's almost no such thing as too much security, and I see no reason not to put a software firewall on your system. I use the Sygate personal (free), and Zonealarm gets a lot of recommendations from XS members; I personally don't like Norton FW.

If you wanted to go the extra step, you could even get yourself your own hardware FW if you felt it necessary, which it may not. Adding the hadware FW is above and beyond but not entirely unreasonable.


:cool:

[Master_G]

I use zonealarm, works wonders for me. I keep a recent edition on a disk, after the last time i formatted, reinstalled winXP, went online to get updates for security and got that damn blaster worm within 30seconds:mad:
It taught me one thing, firewall first, internet later.

G

[jaawood]

thanks for the info. btw Master_G I really like your idea about the firewall on cd. I never even thought of that. The school's firewall here is pretty good, but I am actually mostly concerned about other students here messing around with hacking computers on the school's network, hence the question. I tried the zonealarm, so far it looks pretty cool. I think I'll leave it installed and see what happens.

[JBELL]

zonealarm all the way!!! it is soo easy to use and works VERY well...

[wimpie007]

I kicked my firewall off my pc, (had zonealarm) bugged me too much, now I use the HW Firewall from my router, and I don't see any difference...

[Johnny Knoxvill]

Zonealarm p**** me off with some memory leak in one of the Pro versions that was taking more and more memory (the computer eventually crashes after a few hours), so i got Norton internet security which looks crap but does the job.
sygate and zonealarm are the best software firewalls.

[faruquehabib]

my university is pretty cool. they have norton corporate edition for students to download. also,m got a licensed copy of windows xp pro for $5!!! and visual studio.net 2003 pro for $15

[TheDogFather]

A firewall would be a good idea, to keep some of the other students from messing with your computer.

I use a hardware firewall and ZoneAlarm.

TDF.