Doh! I firewalled myself.

[nintendo]

Just wasted two nights playing with my ICS and network settings before realizing Zonealarm (free) is blocking the client PC from the net.

ZA's site says ZA Pro can be configured to allow ICS, but I'd rather not pay the $40. Does anyone know if Tiny or Sygate allow it? And also, don't laugh, is the firewall built into Windows XP any good?

Thanks.

[lil Jimmie]

The Windows XP firewall will only stop traffic comming into your PC, but will not stop traffic leaving your PC.

[fred]

Hi nintendo,
Firstly, I am no great expert with security, I am an "uninformed user". BUT! I am using XP and ICS and it is working fine. I am only using the firewall built into XP, but I have no doubt everyone will scream at me saying it is not enough (always turns out to be the case, with whatever I use!).
I thought Zone alarm can be configured. If you go into the advanced setup, you can tell Zone alarm what connection is the internet and what is your local net and then choose to drop the firewall settings on the local net. If you don't do this, as you say, the firewall acts locally too...

[pcoopers]

Tiny is very configurable, I recommend it.

I've spent lots of time at HDC BBC, there's a thread about firewalls there, which convinced me I don't need or want Zone Alarm. Seems there is a real question of "Just what is True Vector?" The evidence suggests that it is spyware, gathering info for ZA, which may or may not be sold to marketing agents. So as not to take up to much space here, I refer you to http://www.hackers.com where you can check out the security forum. Look for poll "What's your favorite firewall?"

[pcoopers]

forgot to tell you, I have ICS installed on W98SE machine, using Tiny for Firewall, and Proxomitron for filtering purposes, the networked machine is WinME. I have no problems with this setup, and it's all free. JAP is installed, I can run everything through it for anonymity, but don't always do it, all it takes is to change proxy settings in Proxo. System seems pretty secure, could be better, but Micro$not will never be really secure.

[nintendo]

Thanks. I'm going to give Tiny a try.