O.K. Craven- I Give Up! I Need Another Firewall!

We use McAfee. . . I like their firewalls and virus protection, really user-friendly- they actually let you see who's tried to get into your system, how often, direct links to virus pages and so forth. . .

Don't know anything about Zone Alarm, though. . . once (if) you get it set up right, it might work just fine. . .

I had downloaded Zone Alarm a couople of weeks ago to test a few things for some friends and found that they've changed quite a few things since I'd last used it. It gave me nothing but problems (including creating it's own password that prevented me from shutting it down or uninstalling it!).

The firewall built into WinXP is at least as useful although it's reporting is crude in comparison.

Best popup blocker: Google Toolbar
Best free firewall: Sygate Personal Firewall
As a home user, do you need any firewall other than the one built into WinXP?: No

I recommend XP, it'll solve more problems than just the choice of a firewall.

I had similar problems with McAfee's firewall about 10 days ago (around the same time as one of Microsoft's last updates for IE) and had to reinstall the Firewall and anti-virus program. After reinstalling and downloading more then 100 dat updates, everything is working fine.

Wonder if that last IE update might of had some conflicts with firewalls.

eww. . . I'm always glad I have a mac. . . nice to own a computer no one bothers to hack into. . . <sigh>

Butrflynet - I did download an update from Microsoft right before this happened. I was looking all over the MS support files, and I saw something about firewalls causing scripting errors. When I went back to MS, I could not find a way to uninstall what I had put on the computer. Maybe I will attempt to uninstall and reinstall ZA.

Craven- I have Win98SE on my dinosaur, and I think that I will have to wait for a new computer, before I consider XP.

The thing is, I like ZA, but I have to admit, that it has caused me a number of problems lately. My ZA is up for renewal in 23 days, so I figured that this was a good a time as any to look for something else.

Thanks for everyone's help!

Update- Up until New Year's day, I had done nothing. On New Year's morning, my Zone Alarm Pro would not work..............and I received a message about certain files not being authorized. I knew that the ZA had expired, but I thought that it just meant that I wouldn't get updates..........not that it wouldn't work at all. I had never gotten a message from ZA stating that it was expiring. I had just checked my program, so I knew.

Anyhow, I attempted to uninstall ZA, and the uninstall did not work, either at the program, or at the add/remove. Finally, out of desperation, I found all the files connected to ZA, and deleted them manually.

I then installed the non-pro version of Zone alarm. I went to "Shields Up", and found that as a firewall, the free version worked just as well as the Pro. I could not stand the pop-up ads though.

Anyhow, I waited for most of the day, to see if there are any glitches, (there are, but that is another story). I then downloaded the Google toolbar. That takes care of the pop-ups, but I never realized how spoiled I was in the past with the ability to remove all the ads.

Anyhow, I am sitting tight. I am really considering getting a new computer. Then I will install a program that will remove all the ads.

Phoenix,

2 things, first of all deleting program files will almost always cause problems for your computer. This should not be done.

Secondly many sites (including this one) are starting to permanently lock out computers that do not display ads as there is an implicit contract that the ads are shown in exchange for information, so that technology is in for a, imo well deserved, attack.