I've been having a lot of problems with the firewall I'm running. Ever since I got home on Monday and turned my computer on, it keeps flashing, telling me it's blocking hacker attempts; and it's causing problems whenever web pages try to load.....I'm getting lots and lots of "web page not found" errors, which I know is caused from my firewall going crazy.
If I turn off my firewall, and run just the one that's in XP, will my computer still be firewalled well enough or do I need to run a separate one?
Oops, it's not "web page not found"....it's "Server not found" errors.
I'll default to Web on this. The most I can say is that I've always used Window's firewall and never had any problems, but I could've just gotten lucky.
The Windows firewall will block outside connections that you didn't request. That will stop most everything that might be trying to access your computer.
If you are running through a router or a modem/router, the Windows firewall should be sufficient because you have protection behind the router too.
That is really all a firewall does. It looks at the data coming and going and makes decisions if it should be allowed through or not. If you request a page from a site that has a virus on it, the firewall will not help you a bit because you requested it. If some Russian tries to send you a virus that you didn't request, the firewall will stop it.
The commercial firewalls do extra things, but the Windows firewall should provide you with basic protection.
Thanks Web!! I know a firewall does nothing to stop a virus, but I wasn't sure how good the XP firewall was as far as stopping hacker attacks. And I am through a router too, so it's good to know that's a little extra protection too.
