Time To Upgrade Firewall...NPF or Zone Alarm?

[mark4man]

People,

Every so often, my Firewall (Norton Personal Firewall 2002) pops up an Internet Access Control window during web surfing that advises I block a high risk remote system which is attempting to access my machine.

I always opted for the block; never giving it much thought...& then continue on.

A week ago, out of curiosity, I went to Internet Access Control in NPF to see what these remote systems were.

They were various Inbound TCP, UDP, IMCP & NetBIOS Services...utilizing any number of different ports.

I posted a couple of inquiries as to what are these services were (& how they worked); & learned some good info.

Then...along came the most recent issue of PC World, where they give Zone Alarm their top rating. The gist of the report seemed to indicate that Zone Alarm always prompted for blocking access, but that Norton Personal Firewall was automatic in some instances.

My questions are:

1) Since it's time for an upgrade; & I really like the idea of staying with Norton (for the benefit of having an entire suite...System Works, NAV, NPF)...is there a way to set up NPF so as to have it prompt all the time?

2) Is Zone Alarm so much better that I should replace NPF with it?

Thanks very much,

mark4man

[StealthyV]

I recommend Zone Alarm, the free firewall. I use it on all my puters and it works great. if you read the tutorial (help docs) you'll be a-ok...so far, since I've been online, my firewall has blocked: "268 access attempts" and since I have turned off the "show me an alert" feature, I am not bothered by windows popping up.

~Branson

[mark4man]

Branson,

Thanks much,

mark4man

[nomaxim]

Originally Posted by StealthyV

since I have turned off the "show me an alert" feature, I am not bothered by windows popping up.

~Branson

I've used the Pro version for almost three years and hardly ever get a pop-up anymore and I still have this function turned on. ZA will learn after a time what sites to notify you about and which one's not to. ZA dosen't even bother to tell me when AOL is pinging me anymore.

[Starfury_2260]

err zonealarm has been freezing up my system often when a new program tries to access internet and for some reason the popup to choose yes or no sometimes doesn't appear.