We've had broadband for so long can't remember how u set it up and i think our dsl routor has a firewall all of its own..but then i don't know much about pcs...i have xp firewall...norton and spybot and adware...running all together and they seem fine...
We've also just upgraded to 1mb whatever that is....bandwidth...and with this 64bit processor my pc is flying....well it plays doom 3 really well....
But i really don't understand any of it...my other half sorts most of the problems out...
Same as GMAH, a have a wireless router which has it's own firewall, I also have ZoneAlarm and ETrust AntiVirus.
ZoneAlarm is the Firewall we use in the office and it seems to work fine.
You may be best asking JQL or one of the other real techies on here, Easy.
Hugs, Alex x
In all honesty your best bet is to get a hardware firewall, which is one build into say a router.
But a really good one which allows you to do extra techie rules and stuff is Sygate Personal Firewall.
I wouldnt trust the MS firewall personally. It kindof cuts everything so you cant really d/l or do anything special.
So i would use Sygate, you can download it free from (i think) and its pretty easy. ZoneAlarm is ok but i dont really like it anymore not since i found Sygate.
Also as for P2P, it was mentioned, i would recommend either BitTorrent or eDonkey, which is both spyware free and better.
My $ worth
Nice one Easy.
In our office we use and recommend Corega router or wireless router.
We also use the SMC router.
Both have built in firewalls.
I would advise not using the one given in the package, there are much better ones on the market.
Price would be in the £100 - £150 range.
just my 2p's worth.
Easy get yourself sum more memory....sp2 slowed mine and i got sum memory and it sorted it...but as i said earlier i know nothing about pcs...and techie stuff..
Ram is a very good price at the moment.
I always say that there is no substitute for lots of ram.
Certainly help the machine work better.
BUT
Make sure you buy quality ram, cheap stuff screws things up most of the time.
OKay Easy... heres some advice.
a) the free option. Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2:- Im an MCSE so im biased, but it is without doubt the most complete Firewall package in existance. (and the drivers load before your adsl ones so it offers almost the same level of security as a hardware firewall)
b) Hardware Router Using NAT :- Network Address Translation is an effective tool against most hackers, as all they can see is the router itself, not the devices that lay behind it. However its not totally foolproof, (I can get through a NAT box in about 2 hours, but you need to be VERY knowledgeable in order to do so,its not something the average Joe could bring down) [for an average Idea of cost you would be looking in the region of £80-140 for a good model
c) And the Preffered, Hardware Firewall :- The preffered option is also unfortunately the most expensive, and that is a hardware Firewall, If you want some more advice on these give me a PM as I am happy to talk to you about it (but im technically not supposed to offer recommendations ..!!)
Sean
Yeah if you go for ram make sure you buy decent stuff, crucials pretty good and also make sure you have enough slots and that you MoBo can support the amount you wish to buy.
And just check to make sure you are getting the right stuff, (breaks into song ...), i.e. sdram will not work for ddr or rdram and vice versa (i think ...)
And at the moment SDRAM is pretty expensive, so it might not be a good option. (or at least it was during the summer)
If your PC complains about 1x512 then upgrade the firmware and put the 512Mb memory stick in the CPU priority slot and Voila Extreme performance boost
Sean
Easy if you can give us the make and model number of the motherboard I can do some searching and find something that is cheap and good for you to use.
The XP pro firewall is good once it is setup. I find running that with another software one is perfectly fine. However I also have a ghosted NAT router too so it is a bit of an overkill here.
If you are having trouble deciding which firewall to use then don't worry. Have a look at all there websites and just see which one you can understand the best. This one will be the one for you.
I know there are a lot of free firewalls out there but most will only fully protect your computer if you get the full package. You can half hinch a serial or patch to make them the full package but that is illegal so I can't tell you to do that.
Did you put XP Pro (service pack 2) on from a clean install? or did you just install it over your original copy of windows? Doing the latter generally does make the memory usage a lot greater as there are a lot more unused processes and an unclean registry to worry about.
Let us know how you're doing.
Matt
Hmm looks like you might have to install something.
i would really reccomend sygate. But thats me.
Ultimatly like someone has said already just look at them all and see which you think you can use.
Norton even does one, but i wouldn't personally use that. Dont know why just wouldnt
Why the Hell would you want it to drop outgoing traffic?
Trust me.. for the average Joe the Firewall bundled in SP2 is more than adequate.
If you need any additional security then some simple registry edits can provide it with no problem at all.
Personally I wouldn't consider using a third party firewall product with SP2. they tend (with a very few not free notable exceptions) to load into kernel after it has loaded its networking routine, so frankly are about as secure as an unlocked car with the engine running.
Im going to disagree with others on here who have said that the router is not a good option though, as I have MANY clients that are using NAT as a cheap, easy and effective firewall regardless of whether they have just one PC or not.
Sean
:D :D :D 
(but it blocked a couple of things last night when I visited the yellow pages website).
But then, I'm not really qualified to recommend firewall software...
). 
be nice if it was. 
It'd make my life easier. (and that's not something you hear someone say about M$ every day :shock: )
I'll ask again when it comes time to configure it for this particular type of activity. 
).