About Firewall

[lacanadienne]

Good Evening,

I have just installed Avast Version 4,6 Edition Familiale and I wonder whether Windows SP2 Firewall must be desactived or not.

I suppose a firewall is involved in Avast.

Is it OK to keep both?

Thank you
 

[Lisandro]

Welcome to forums 
Wrong supposition, avast! is just an antivirus, without a firewall.
You should, in my opinion, get a 3rd party firewall: ZoneAlarm, Outpost and Kerio are good ones with free versions.
I do not recomend staying only with internal SP2 firewall.

[lukor]

With XP SP2 firewall you have less chances to configure it improperly. If you don't require outgoing connection control, it is very easy and rather good working firewall.

[Jarmo P]

I share Lukor's opinion.
You should be perfectly safe with just SP2 firewall.

Only problem is you can never be sure if something is going out, so that is why we who use other software firewalls often recommend the neccessity of outbound controlling firewall.
That is for us paranoids, lol

But I have not found much, Realplayer going out when not needed, windows Media Player too.
Only when I installed Kazaa 2 years ago, did I notice something more aggressive, but even that traffic was just spyware.

With safe habits, installing SpywareBlaster and sometimes running some free antispyware program on demand scan, besides Avast resident, your computer should stay clean.

[neal62]

lacanadienne,

WinsXP firewall is okay to use as mentioned. I also would recommend another firewall that blocks any outgoing requests from your computer. A good software firewall should be all you need. If your computer is the ONLY computer being used in your house then I would not suggest you get a hardware router/firewall. All they do really is block any attempts from hackers trying to access your computer. They will not stop any malware from entering your computer.
    A hardware routers main purpose is to be used when your running more than 1 computer in your home/business. This has been discussed before on this forum and there are different opinions about it. IMHO you should be okay with what I mentioned above.  I would also recommend that you have other protection in the form of good anti-spyware program/s. These with a good software firewall should be sufficient enough. 

[DavidR]

I share Lukor's opinion.
You should be perfectly safe with just SP2 firewall.

That is not what Lukor said, there is nothing about safety in his reply.

With XP SP2 firewall you have less chances to configure it improperly. If you don't require outgoing connection control, it is very easy and rather good working firewall.

For me the windows XP firewall is only better than no firewall at all, we all need outbound protection otherwise there is nothing to stop your personal data being slipped out of the back door.

[Jarmo P]

I shared Lukor's thoughts.

The second line was mine.
It should have been written instead instead of 'perfectly' though 'relatively'.
With the immunizating protection of SpywareBlaster or likes.
Nothing is safe these days

But outbound controlling firewalls can be a bother for many who are not so knowledgeable and aware what to answer. I think they cause more problems for them than worth the added protection.

Depends on the user's computing habits what is needed. For gamesters and other heavy installers, sure outbound protection firewall is desirable.

[DavidR]

I know the second line was yours, that is why I mentioned it because to others it could look like you shared Lukor's opinion that it was perfectly safe.