im new to vista

Personally the Vista firewall is a bit of a letdown still, yes it blocks incomming data fine and just as good as any firewall, but still does nto have an easy route to monitor outgoing applications, you can but you would have to learn how to create firewall rules.

Only my opinion from trying it, I would not let the latest ZoneAlarm anywhere near any of my 3 Vista PCs, since the company was sold, they have gone the route of Symantec and bundling every last security product with their firewall instead of sticking to the tried and trusted Firewall only free version, you you can custom install and remove the added Antivirus and Antimalware etc but for me it still didnt play nice with my favoured free AV and Antimalware apps.

Sadly firewalls for vista are mainly in development, yes there are some available but my favored one in Comodo is not ready as yet, so this free one is next best, http://www.majorgeeks.com/Vista_Firewall_Control_32-bit_d5578.html ( 32bit so if you installed 64bit Vista goto the MG firewall section )

 

I was until a few months ago when I swapped to Windows OneCare, due to an invite to test OC with a perpertual licence and 3 of them, so my two laptops have OC and my desktop is flying with the built in one, until Comodo is released.

I didnt find any slowdowns of the PC with Vista Frewall, but I know some have, I would uninstall Vista Firewall Control, you could try ZA then but if your experience with VFC is the same as mine with ZA it will be much slower, in browsing experience, but custom install ZA and remove all bar the Firewall component.

I may try ZA latest version again and see if its any better than the early releases... but like all software what may work great for me may not for you, depends on interactions with other software we install at times.

 

Yes thats what I finally used in XP once I removed ZA before moving to Vista, which is reason I just using the built in one in Vista on desktop for now, and onto a release date, they have none scheduled dates for the final release a beta was released Aug 9th, if you sign up at their forums you can iirc get the beta ( but only install if you fancy a play as its likely like all betas to be unstable for some )