Posted: 12/8/2002 7:08:29 AM EDT
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What's a good firewall? My system is being inundated with pop-ups that are really slowing it down and annoying the shit out of me. I have an ad zapper, but it only zaps the ads after they have started loading, which doesn't keep them from slowing down the computer. My old system firewall (which was installed when I bought computer) isn't working for shit. Edited to add: I don't do business on the computer, or run a network, so I don't need programs that deal with ebusiness or networks. Edited again to add: I need a good Trojan program remover too. |
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Zone Alarm www.zonelabs.com The free version works just fine. But a firewall is not designed to stop popups. I use Pow! for that. www.analogx.com Also, you want a good "spyware" remover. www.lavasoftusa.com as Adaware, which is excellent. Will find and remove spyware. After you get Zonealarm, or any other firewall, test your stealth on the web at www.grc.com (Gibson Research) by using their Test My Shields, and Probe My Ports. These will try to hack in to your computer from their site and give you a report. Do this, test your computer first, then install your new firewall, and then test it again. |
| Avoid the freebie from the AT&T Broadband homepage. I downloaded if after getting cable at their insistence. I couldn't upload anything after that and they kept telling me it was my PC. Then they told me that there were some serious issues with the program, yet they still have it available for download from their site. |
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For stopping pop-ups I recommend FreeSurfer - [url]http://www.emsproject.com/FS/[/url] I use AdAware to periodically purge my system of spyware - [url]http://download.com.com/3000-2094-10045910.html?legacy=cnet[/url] The best firewalls are hardware. If you're on cable or DSL you can get a good one for under $100, and it gives you multiple ports so you can share your connection among several machines. I use a D-Link 704P. Many variants are available. See [url]http://www.dlink.com/products/routers/index.asp[/url] for examples. |
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I've uninstalled ZoneAlarm (a fairly daunting task) from all of my machines and replaced it with Sygate Personal Firewall. ZA just didn't have the features that I found necessary. It was limited to blocking IP addresses or a range of IPs. This is just not very practical or effective. Sygate allows me to block by IP, port#, protocol#, etc. |
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Quoted: It sounds like you desperately need to run Ad-Aware on your computer. You probably have Gator and innumerable other pop-up magnets in your drive -- get rid of them! The first time I scanned I had 117 such files. I have AdAware and use it about weekly, it didn't normally find anything. However, the program I got with ZoneAlarm Plus (which does have a pop-up blocker) found like 400 spyware programs dating back almost two years on my hard drive. The pop ups didn't start until this summer. Anyway, I got what I was looking for. I haven't had any pop ups for the last day. |