Firewall issues

Hello, and thanks so much for your service,

I recently installed Norton Anti Virus 2006, which comes with 'Internet Worm Protection'. When installing, it recommended that I turn off my Microsoft XP Firewall. I read a little bit on the subject and decided to keep the Microsoft Firewall on as well as the Norton worm protection. Should I keep them both on, or will they conflict with each other?

 

You might want to read this thread, which discusses this very topic. Seems like NWP acts as a half-arse firewall, and you should definitely not have 2 on your system.

Now, don't take this as a recommendation for Windows Firewall (WF). It is a very poor firewall. I would recommend Zone Alarm (ZA), as this provides bi-directional control of applications, where WF blocks only incoming traffic. Bi-directional will come in handy in case you ever suffer a spyware infection. If it were trying to send your credit card numbers out on the internet, ZA would stop it where WF would not.

Actually, if you wanted my honest opinion, I would say to trash Norton alltogether. The reason being that there are free alternatives that do a better job! Not to say that Norton won't detect viruses, just that it takes up ALOT of hard drive space and memory, and is such a big target for malicious coders that it often is disabled by a malware infection. I would recommend that you read the how to protect yourself from malware thread, as it will show you how to set up an excellent, free, redundant defense against spyware and viruses. I know its hard to part with a program you just paid quite a bit of money for, but with the advice on this thread, you'll be better protected, and you'll never have to pay a dime.

 

I did mention that!