SP2 Firewall vs. Zone Alarm

I have recently installed SP2 which obviously has a windows firewall with it. My question is, which would be better, turning the XP firewall off and using Zone Alarm only or just staying with the built in windows firewall? Which is more effective and why?

Thanks,

 

Sp2 firewall is fine for inbound protection.

If you want outbound proptection and annoying prompts as well, go with Zone Alarm.

 

Thanks Adrynalyne. Is there any need to have outbound protection as well?

 

Well, I sport the unpopular opinion here.

If you know whats on your system and keep it clean of spyware and viruses, then there is no need for outbound protection.

Its actually pretty easy to keep your system clean, too, as long as you have a good antivirus and keep up to date on patches and so forth.

But like I said, I hold the unpopular opinion.

Someone will come in her and post why you can't live without it, I am sure

 

put me in the unpopular opinion category too. I only have my router hooked up..nothing more.

 

Adrynalyne is correct. If you do the proper things up front in-bound protection is all you really should need.
Practice safe browsing, read eula's when installing software (and don't install stuff that is going to phone home or mars for that mattter unless you want it to), keep you virus protection up to date, etc, etc, etc. all of these things I do.
Now after saying that, I use zone alarm. This is only because I like the extra layer of security it affords in that should i accidentaly pick something up and miss it with a virus scan, spybot scan, etc. I will get an alert saying hey this program is trying to access the internet, and i can track it down. Now, since I have switched to FireFox & Thunderbird and cleaned up my browsing practices this outgoing protection has not been a concern.
I also use it as the lazy man's way to keep programs from phoning home for updates, instead of hunting down the settings and turning off the signal home.

 

Thanks for the advice all I think I will install Zone Alarm for a bit just so I can watch and learn what tries to connect with the outside world without my knowing...

 

Any intreresting results? Was your experiment worthwhile? Inquiring minds want to know!