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Upgrading XP Firewall


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#1
CremeBrulee

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Hi,

Pls can anybody help me.

Having read http://www.geekstogo...;page=How_did_I (How did I get infected in the first place) after recently being infected with a vundo trojan. I have done everything this page recommends except upgrade my standard XP firewall to one of the following: Sygate, Kerio or ZoneAlarm.

However, since the page was written things have changed e.g. Sygate is no-longer free and has been merged with symantec who now incorporate the firewall in Norton. Kerio have an affiliation with McAfee and only do a free 30 day trial. ZoneAlarm has mixed reviews from excellant to rubbish!!

Therefore:

Does it still stand that XP Firewall is still as poor as it was and should be upgraded?

Is ZoneAlarm still a better replacement?

Can anyone recommend a better alternative firewall to replace XP firewall other than ZoneAlarm (Has to be FREE)?

Does anyone have any additional tips to prevent these 'nasties' from taking hold, which they'd like to share.

Many thanks
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#2
texas666

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Look at www.pctools.com to see if their freeware products are suitable for you.
The Firewall Plus and Threatfire ( malware prevention) are working for my computer.

Edited by texas666, 18 April 2008 - 04:12 AM.

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#3
pip22

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Welcome to Geeks2Go!

First of all, you need to be aware that a firewall is only half of the defence you need to have, the other half is an up-to-date antivirus program. A firewall alone will not necessarily protect you from trojans and and other malware-infected files, that's the job of an antivirus program. A firewall's primary purpose is to warn you of any attempts to send data out or bring data in without your knowledge (eg could be someone trying to "hack in" to the contents of your hard disk) and to automatically 'block' any traffic which is known to be harmful.

Although the 'SP2' update to the Windows Firewall has made it more configurable, it's still only a "one way" firewall. It monitors incoming traffic but not outgoing traffic. So that major weakness is still there. As you've discovered, free firewalls are now 'thin on the ground'. If you want an alternative to ZoneAlarm there is one called "Comodo Firewall" which like all third-party firewalls monitors traffic in both directions:
http://www.personalf...m/overview.html

They also offer a free antivirus product but it seems to be always in 'beta' (unfinished) and I personally prefer not to use beta software:
http://antivirus.comodo.com/
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#4
CremeBrulee

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Thanks for the info.

I will check out pctools.com and "Comodo Firewall" - Will these firewalls remove the XP firewall during install or will I have to uninstall XP firewall separately?

The Trojan vundo I contracted was hidden inside a zip file of a music album I downloaded from torrent reactor (I always seem to pick something up from downloads off this site). However, it was only detected by spybot during registry changes and not by my AV with real time protect?

I have since added the other programs, so the system now has the following protection, which I hope is enough once I change the firewall.

Microsoft:
Windows Defender
Firewall

3rd Party:
Symantec Corp AV
Spybot
IE-SpyAD
Spyware Blaster
Spyware Guard
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
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#5
texas666

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Don't uninstall windows firewall - go to control panel - windows firewall and turn it off. That's all I did. I would say with all you have defending your system and the multiple spyware defenders don't slow down your system. looks good.
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