Norton Firewall or Windows Firewall

A few months ago, I had a problem with my Symantec Norton AV. The solution, as offered by a Symantec rep here on Major Geeks, was to upgrade my Norton AV from 2006 to the 2009 version. Unfortunately, that required that I uninstall my Norton Firewall because Symantec no longer supports Norton Firewall and their 2009 AV is incompatible with Norton Firewall.

The discission thread is here:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=179817

So I un-installed Norton AV and Firewall, and installed Norton AV 2009, and then turned on Windows Firewall. I like NAV 2009 because it doesn't hog my processor the way NAV 2006 did. But Norton Firewall passed a stealth firewall test on some other tech site, and I really liked it.

Question for all you major geeks...

Am I better off running Norton AV 2009 and Windows Firewall?

Or am I better off going back to Norton AV 2006 and Norton Firewall 2006?

 

Your call really, --- Windows Firewall is actually good enough with a router between your computer and internet (Major Attitude Approved!). But others here in the forum would like to see you with a software firewall like PC Tools or Comodo. In fact --- Comodo Internet Security is highly recommended and can replace Nortons for you, and it's completely free!

Hope that helps!

 

Thanks, dr.m! That sounds perfect. I'll try Firewall Plus and let you know. I, too, dislike "excess baggage" with my software. Norton Firewall passed the Leak Test with flying colors. Shame that they discontinued it.

 

Okay, I'll check out both Firewalls and let you know! Thanks!

 

Don't mean to hijack this thread...but it got me wondering: What is the difference between Windows Firewall and Windows Defender?

Thanks,

Blaine

 

Dr,

Thanks for the links. My question was...are Windows Defender and Firewall basically the same and the link to Windows Firewall answers it...basically, they are variations of the same thing...just packaged and called different names in whatever OS one has loaded and the service packages installed. I was also wondering if they differ and whether one is better than the other?

I have Windows Defender on my laptop with Vista. I believe it came with Vista. This desktop has XP Pro with SP3 which was just installed. I suspect the rule of thumb is the latest updates from Windows will have some kind of enhancements to the firewalls regardless of the name...whether called Windows Defender or Firewall, or Internet Connection Firewall.

OK, as Inspector Clouseau would say..."the problem is sol-VED"

Thanks,

Blaine

rolleyes I now return the thread back to Hungry Guy rolleyes