Dear Forum Users,
Thank you for your contribution. I appreciate both your directness and patience with a less-experienced user.
I can see the risk of adding files to the exclusion list as well as the benefit of reducing conflicts between security software. So, I will still need to think about this a little bit more.
It is extremely difficult to choose an appropriate firewall. Although ZoneAlarm Pro has been relatively good over the last few years, the support on the ZA forum combined with the quality of the product has decreased in my opinion.
The variety of firewalls out and their commercial interests do not bode well for less-experienced users like myself. I would like to keep Avast Pro and MBAM resident protection as part of my setup. Product quality and expert forum support are two factors which really benefit me.
However, the search for a firewall which is resource-light and at the same time 'heavy-duty' and reliable goes on. Preferably, I would like to include a free firewall in my setup. In my experience, expensive 'branded' firewalls, for example Norton, Panda, Mcaffee, are bloated software packages which require unnecessary resource-capability of a computer. Moreover they tend to over consume resources on adequately-equipped computers.
Please keep your thoughts, suggestions and comments flowing. They all increase the knowledge of users on this forum.
Thanks,
Avastfan1