I recently signed up for the ClearWire wireless broadband service. ClearWire will not work while ZoneAlarm is active. I have shut down ZoneAlarm and activated the WinXP SP2 firewall which works fine. Questions: Can anyone suggest a way to modify ZoneAlarm so that it will work with ClearWire? Is the SP2 firewall adequate in today's internet environment? If not, what other free firewalls should I look at? I understand that Kerio and Sygate are not longer available.
Thank you, Lyall Kingman
I do not know about ClearWire, but ZA is usually pretty good at asking you about stuff before blocking it[1].
About the only problem I can think of is a problem with zones, which
*may* affect ClearWire. Hard to tell without any information, though.The SP2 firewall only checks inbound traffic. My personal preference is strongly towards replacing either the OS (with any free *nix) or employing at least a NAT router before the machine itself.
If this is not an option, the SP2 builtin firewall is said to be at least as good as a personal firewall like ZA. The configuration is slightly less user-friendly though, and it will silently block stuff instead of popping up like ZA and friends (see [1], though).
Joachim
[1] Which does not mean this is a good concept, see many posts/rants on this group about personal firewalls not working at all. Basically, mouse clicks can be faked, so relying on user input to (dis)allow stuff is not a very good model.
Firstly have you a Green Tick in Programs for the applications you are using? If you are not sure change them to a Blue '?' then ZA will ask you what to do. Say yes and tick "remember" setting. That may work - if not - As you try to get on line note the exact PC time. Then - In Zone Alarm open the Logs & Alerts and click on the Blocked Entry for that exact time and put it in the "Trusted" Zone. That worked for me when my router was blocked.
Slatts
|The SP2 firewall only checks inbound traffic. My personal preference is |strongly towards replacing either the OS (with any free *nix) or |employing at least a NAT router before the machine itself.
NAT is a good start and anything that assists inbound, unsolicited inputs is an assistance worth doing.
Outbound controls help confine a rouge intrusion to the machine invected. In theory, if the inbound can be sufficiently controlled, the outbound should never require control.
caveot emptor :)
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