[az0000000]

Here is my situation,
For some reasons i am on an old AMD Athlon 600 MHz CPU with 512 RAM junk machine (Windows XP SP2 Pro), and will have to stay on it for a while.
After the last virus attack I hardly recovered from, I feel I can’t rely anymore on Windows Firewall, it just doesn’t do anything to protect me.
I would really appreciate an advice for an alternative Firewall that would be protecting better than Windows Firewall, but would take just as many resources as Windows Firewall does.
Please consider seriously that I am on an old machine and working with monsters like Photoshop, every bit of RAM and CPU power matters to me, and i would kindly ask you to advice me only software you are sure about (not just for advertising purposes), and have tested it and know what you are talking about.

p.s. by the way I am really want to know:
1. How many resources take Windows Firewall and where can I check such data?
2. How exactly can I check if my Windows Firewall is really running (and doesn’t just appear as ON in control panel, or Security Center) because after the last attack I am not sure anymore if my firewall is running at all…

[Advertisements]

Windows Firewall is just that - a firewall. It has nothing do with anything else other than firewall duties.
The problem you've got is modern day programs are so big, so resource heavy and are generally geared up for the hardware today. Installing any of them will kill the computer's performance to a point where it may be unusable. Realistically I'm surprised Photoshop is usable on that computer.

1) It doesn't. It just sits there and acts on demand. Inbuilt firewall is the lightest one I've seen but generally its not that good.
2) Security Center will tell you, or you can see the appropriate icon in the Control Panel.

[Neil Jones]

Windows Firewall is just that - a firewall. It has nothing do with anything else other than firewall duties.
The problem you've got is modern day programs are so big, so resource heavy and are generally geared up for the hardware today. Installing any of them will kill the computer's performance to a point where it may be unusable. Realistically I'm surprised Photoshop is usable on that computer.

1) It doesn't. It just sits there and acts on demand. Inbuilt firewall is the lightest one I've seen but generally its not that good.
2) Security Center will tell you, or you can see the appropriate icon in the Control Panel.

[az0000000]

Windows Firewall is just that - a firewall. It has nothing do with anything else other than firewall duties.
The problem you've got is modern day programs are so big, so resource heavy and are generally geared up for the hardware today. Installing any of them will kill the computer's performance to a point where it may be unusable. Realistically I'm surprised Photoshop is usable on that computer.

1) It doesn't. It just sits there and acts on demand. Inbuilt firewall is the lightest one I've seen but generally its not that good.
2) Security Center will tell you, or you can see the appropriate icon in the Control Panel.

Thank you. These answers are good for me.
I would like to ask you if there is meaning for me with my old computer to update IE6 to IE7. Does IE7 eat more power than IE6? Dows IE7 protect better than IE6?
Need to mention that IE6 was the main leak point when my computer was really damaged at last virus attack. I remember I just visited the hacked index.html of my own website and in couple minutes everything became very bad. Windows firewall and Security Center were down, and computer infected.

[Ltangelic]

Actually, I would recommend Firefox as your default browser, it is much safer in a sense that less hijackers target firefox users.

You should still have IE installed (I would recommend upgrading to IE7 which has better protection) as some sites can only be browsed using IE.

Hope this helps.

LT

[az0000000]

Actually, I would recommend Firefox as your default browser, it is much safer in a sense that less hijackers target firefox users.

You should still have IE installed (I would recommend upgrading to IE7 which has better protection) as some sites can only be browsed using IE.

Hope this helps.

LT

Thanks.
I am already using Firefox most of the time but I need IE sometimes (I do web page design) so I was wondering if IE7 code-rendering engine differs in any way from IE6 engine. Was wondering if my pages during test previews will show any different after updating to IE7?

Edited by az0000000, 11 February 2008 - 03:08 AM.

[Mike]

Keep in mind that Firefox seems to use more memory than IE (at least in older versions had huge memory leaks) .... but there is a add-on for firefox called IE tab that will allow you to open a tab rendered by the IE engine in firefox, that may help.

[tailchaser]

Dude: Did I miss something? You said you just got over a bad virus attack. Seams to me, look at your virus and adware programs. I'm using AVG free and spybot search and destroy on dosens of computers of all types and as long as you update and actually run the cleaning part, they run spotless. I even run windows defender but don't really see any difference. Maybe you can go to start, run, msconfig, enter and click on the startup tab. Unclick anything you really don't need top load at startup. If you don't understand it, google the filename and you will find an explanation of that file. Click apply and reboot. Hope this helped.
Jim :-)

[az0000000]

Dude: Did I miss something? You said you just got over a bad virus attack. Seams to me, look at your virus and adware programs. I'm using AVG free and spybot search and destroy on dosens of computers of all types and as long as you update and actually run the cleaning part, they run spotless. I even run windows defender but don't really see any difference. Maybe you can go to start, run, msconfig, enter and click on the startup tab. Unclick anything you really don't need top load at startup. If you don't understand it, google the filename and you will find an explanation of that file. Click apply and reboot. Hope this helped.
Jim :-)

Now my computer is clean, I am sure, as I am more than just a beginner in computer security.
It just happened to me to get infected by simply visiting the homepage of my own website. I noticed the infection procedure with my own eyes; it just was too late till I figured what’s going on. My Symantec Corporate 10 caught the virus in same moment, but the malicious html code or whatever script was in index.html had enough time to destroy windows firewall and mess windows security center.