Lagged connection with Zone Alarm

[kmillerusaf]

Hello everyone,

I am new to the forums but not very new to computers. I have been using them for years now but I do not claim to be an expert. Recently, in an effort to help my girlfriend rid her computer of virus/spyware, got rid of norton personal firewall and got zone alarm's free edition because norton's license expired and she didn't want to continue to pay for the service. However we have noticed markedly decreased connection speed on certain webpages and even certain games that I play online. PL is a big problem as well as increased ping. Is there something in the settings that would cause this or might it be interacting badly with her computer specs? Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,
Keith

[glc]

If the computer has XP SP2 and it's behind a NAT router, get rid of ZA too and just use the Windows firewall. You might want to download Winsockfix (google it) and run it - and adjust your RWIN for the bandwidth of your connection - the tweak tests and DrTCP at dslreports.com will help you there. Make sure you have gotten rid of all scraps of Norton, that can be a real pain at times.

[kmillerusaf]

If the computer has XP SP2 and it's behind a NAT router, get rid of ZA too and just use the Windows firewall. You might want to download Winsockfix (google it) and run it - and adjust your RWIN for the bandwidth of your connection - the tweak tests and DrTCP at dslreports.com will help you there. Make sure you have gotten rid of all scraps of Norton, that can be a real pain at times.
Does it help that we are currently overseas and not behind a router. We are only using a microlink adsl fun lan modem and the system is SP2. The decrease in connection speed has only happened since the install of Sygate and then Zone Alarm. I will try to use CCleaner to get rid of Norton scraps. Thanks and I am looking into dslreports.com as we speak

[glc]

Hmm - if the modem provides NAT, that would be fine - but passing straight IP through I think I'd want something a little stronger than just the Windows firewall.