After I installed the latest versions of Free Zone Alarm and Free AVG antivirus on my WinXP Home PC and tried to shut down, the PC hung on the blue "shutting down" screen and had to be turned off and turned back on again.
Zone Alarm running by itself also caused a hang, until I followed the advice offered on Zone lab's web site, which suggested deleting several files in the "internet logs" directory. After that, ZA did NOTcause a hang when it was running by itself. AVG antivirus does not seem to cause the hang when it is running by itself either. Only when the two are running together.
So what should I do? I really need both of these programs to work on my PC, for obvious reasons.
My PC has a Pentium 4, 3.2GHZ and 1GB of RAM. Does anybody know why this is happening and how to fix it? Please let me know. Thanks.
I'm running Win98, and on this PC, ZoneAlarm and Av's do seem to fight at shutdown and startup. I solved the problem by keeping the Internet Logs folder lean. (delete logs regularly) If ZA creates a lot of .tmp files, it needs to be re-installed. I also unchecked ZA in Msconfig so it doesn't conflict at startup with the AV. I start ZA myself, before I dialup. In the Systray by the clock, I have only Display, Volume, and AV icons at startup. I startup ZA, Dialup, and other programs as I need them. It runs much smoother that way. Hope this helps.
Yes, I saw an article about the "internet logs" folder on Zone Labs web site. But this kind of housecleaning, it seems to me, should be done automatically. I'd also like to load both automatically for the convenience. Not being able to will be a big pain. Thanks for the suggestions.
A single PC. It was very intriguing, but how do you explain that all the other tech sites are recommending the use of a Firewall while this one says they're snake oil? What does that author know that almost everybody else, evidently, does not?
Usually, journalists are not the people, who are inventing things. This is not their job. Their job is to report about things that happen in the domain they're reporting about.
A good journalist has to understand the basics of her/his domain, though. But she/he does not need to be a perfect technician or to be able to understand each line of code like a good developer has to.
But a good journalist has to have the nose to scent, what a good story is. A good story is something many people want to read, because journalists are dyeing paper with black ink, and if they're doing a good job, than much more people want to have this paper than before ;-)
With the idea of public relations, PR, you're using this effect as a company. You're making so a big story out of your products (in what way ever you will manage to do this, some million $ for advertizing will help anyway), that every journalist catches the ball.
A second effect is, that before Windows XP SP2, "Personal Firewalls" had a positive effect: they're implementing packet filters. And to have a packet filter for Windows looks like a very good idea, because Windows starts many servers in the default configuration, which are offering services to the complete Internet, when there is a connection.
This is exactly, what the Windows-Firewall does, too. And, having a closer look, it's idiotic.
It's idiotic from Microsoft to start so many servers, because then they have to be filtered away afterwards. If Microsoft would not start these servers in the default configuration, then you won't need to filter any- thing.
This is, what
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and Torsten's script are doing. They're just stopping the server programs, Microsoft starts in the default configuration. And you don't need a packet filter any more.
But filtering is the second best option, and it's much better than to do nothing.
Now, since such solutions are there, and that the Windows-Firewall is there, the manufacturers of "Personal Firewalls" are running into trouble.
No-one needs there products any more.
So they're "inventing" bells and whistles. It's an old idea, coming from the fact, that people are comparing products before buying one. So you have to have features, the competitor does not have. And, having only the view of a layperson, the customer is not able to differ between the features, which are sensible, and the features, which are of the kind "bells and whistles".
Additionally, the customer is forced to believe something. No regular user can decide, which feature is a good idea and which is useless or even counterprodictive. All is with believing or not. It's like with religion.
So most of the customers are buying the product, they have the best feeling with. They're not dumb to do so, because how should they decide?
And this is why manufacturers are designing their products so, that the user has a good feeling with. This is the reason for having popups with "Your Personal Firewall saved you from an attack again!!!1!11". This is why Symantec implements filtering your "secret data" away, even if it's counterproductive. They give you, the customer, a good feeling that everything is "highly" secure. It does not matter, if this is sensible or not.
And the newspapers and magazines are reporting about it.
I think the average user is well advised to listen to the reputable people in the IT industry when it comes to the security of your computer. Disabling your firewall because it might be hackable is like leaving the door unlocked because a professional thief could probably break the lock. Chances are....... Locking the door is a good idea.
No. No-one sensible will call you to "unlock your door". I'm just calling you to decide for a secure door, and to ignore the door, for which any thief has a picklock already. But this comparison is flawed. Many "Personal Firewall" open additional security holes, you would not have without one. So for this door not only every thief has a picklock already, but when you install this door, then your Windows are unsecure, too (please pardon my word-play - SCNR ;-).
I'm not requesting people not to stop offering servers to the Internet, or not to use the Windows-Firewall. I'm requesting just the opposite. And I'm requesting not to use Internet Explorer, not to use Outlook or Outlook Express, and to be careful with Virus Scanners, because they are useful, but cannot find every virus by concept. And I'm requesting home users to consider, if a Macintosh will not fit much more their needs than a Windows PC.
The comparison with the door lock is wrong for other reasony, too. Please read this article on this topic, if you want to know why:
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