WinXP firewall

[lexi]

Can anyone tell me what a firewall is and what this does? Do I really need it? The IE Browser is acting kind of funky at times and I'm wondering if this is why...sometimes when the page loads it's blank...and I'm having alot of trouble seeing some sites. I get alot of Cannot find server/page cannot be displayed messages for sites I know are up and running?

ANyone know if the XP firewall is causing this?

[framerw47]

The firewall COULD be causing it--it's hard to say. Open up "control panel", go to "network and internet connections" click on "network connections", double click on "local area connection" under "lan or high speed internet", then the advanced tab. Uncheck the box where it says "Protect my computer by limiting access". Run it that way for a little while to see if you still get the IE errors. If it doesn't improve you know that wasn't the problem, so just go back in and enable the firewall. For an explanation of what a firewall does, go here. http://www.firewallguide.com/ You can also do a search on Yahoo or Google for "Firewall" and come up with some more info. HTH

[lexi]

Thanks framerw47, I'm going to give it a try to see if things improve. And thanks for the links too

[lexi]

Framerw47, I took off the firewall and that seemed to help...sites I couldn't see are showing up. Thank you

[archie]

There are many people who are having the blank page problem here in the PCMech forums ... http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?threadid=27266
As for the firewall, I think it's a good thing to have on a PC ... I haven't used the WinXP one so don't know too much about it. ZoneAlarm [free version] is the one I've been using.

[framerw47]

Lexi, I agree with Archie that some sort of firewall is a good idea even on dial-up. I have read that the XP firewall will stop outsiders from coming into your computer but will not stop anything(spyware,etc.) from calling out of your computer. I use Zone Alarm Pro myself, but there are lots of other people who use the free version with no problems. On my system, I get the occasional blank page and sometimes I can be connected to my ISP and can't access a given site. I'm convinced that it's ZA causing this, but I live with it for now till Zonelabs comes out with their new 3.0 version of ZA.

[lexi]

Ok, you both have me thinking that I should turn the firewall back on at least
for now. I'm going to check out the sites you mentioned framer to learn more so I can decide if I want to buy one or maybe switch from the one that came with WinXP.

Archie I missed that post so thanks for showing it to me, but I'm not having that problem with just the PC site...I'm having it maybe at 75% of the sites i went to.

Do either of you know if any of the boxes should be checked--what I mean is when you go into networking andinto dial up's properties, and you check to enable the firewall there is a link there for Settings....and it has a lot of boxes...should those be checked or unchecked? In the past they have all been unchecked...I tried using the setup wizard but that thing keeps trying to set up a network! I don't have a network lol.

[LittleAura]

MS + security, not noted together.
ZA, well its not bad for free, yes it does cause problems from time to time, but not really the best. NeoWatch is the best that i have tested, but it doesn't stop out going, there i would say sygate is the best (use both, best of both worlds )