Windows XP Firewall

[derekpara]

I've been told that the firewall built into Windows XP is ' perfectly adequate' and therefore I assume Zone Alarm is not necessary and could, in fact, cause problems.

Anyone care to comment, please ?

[deggers316]

its not that good its a one way system unlike zone alarm or other free firewall. i believe the vista and windows 7one is a 2 way type
you should not have two firewalls running in fact when u install zone alarm it will automatically turn the windows firewall off
but check that anyway if you install it

[VHG]

The Windows XP firewall is considered very weak and should probably not be used. I would suggest using ZoneAlarm.

They beefed up the firewall in Vista and 7 and for most users the Windows firewall is probably enough.

[ChuckFickens]

the XP firewall is rubbish

the vista firewall is rubbish unless you manually change a load of settings to make it a two way firewall.

The windows 7 firewall is much better, but still not as strong as a dedicated firewall such as zone alarm.

[Mobius1]

The adequacy of the Windows XP firewall completely depends on the user in my opinion. If you are a sensible and cautious user and you don't use P2P or file-sharing programs and you regularly use quality antivirus and spyware, then I think the built-in firewall is fine. I personally used just the XP firewall in conjunction with effective anti-malware programs for 7 years and never had a single problem that could be definitively attributed to not having a third party firewall installed.

I now have WIndows 7, which as mentioned has a two way firewall, but I don't feel any more or less safe behind it. If you are a relatively novice user, then I do think that having a third party firewall can cause more problems than it solves.

[derekpara]

Thank you one and all. I think I will stick to Zone Alarm; I've never had any real problems.

D

[Mr Veritas]

I can only agree that the Windows XP Firewall is pretty useless.
You need an alternative,I have Norton,but ANY commercial firewall would be better than the Windows XP one!
When you install a good commercial firewall you can disable the Windows XP one,so it won't cause any problems.