# Win XP and Zone Alarm firewall issue **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 14, 2002, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win-xp-and-zone-alarm-firewall-issue/113971 "2002-06-14T03:11:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2002, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win-xp-and-zone-alarm-firewall-issue/113971/1 "2002-06-14T03:11:19Z")
MY Dad has a laptop with Win XP and Zone Alarm installed. If Win XP’s firewall (if you can call it that) and Zone Alarm are both running he cannot get out to any site using any browser. He is using a cable modem. I told my Dad to disable XP’s firewall or Zone Alarm. It works if you kill one of the firewalls. But, and it’s a big but, my Dad wants to keep both firewalls running. I don’t have time to research this issue since I am in school so I am asking for any help I can get. My best guess is that my Dad will have to pick Zone Alarm and disable XP but if there is anyway to make the two products work I would appriciate the info. Slee ---
**Author:** ![dead0man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@dead0man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dead0man)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2002, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win-xp-and-zone-alarm-firewall-issue/113971/2 "2002-06-14T04:40:23Z")
Your best guess is probably the only solution. I have never even tried to run XP’s firewall because of the bad things I heard about it initially. I dont even recall what they were now, but I was happily using ZoneAlarm before XP so I continued using it after I got XP. Why does your dad think he needs both? ZoneAlarm has been proven to be the best of the home use firewall’s in ever test I’ve ever seen. Convince him to kill XP’s firewall and all should be good. dead0man ---
**Author:** ![Popup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2002, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win-xp-and-zone-alarm-firewall-issue/113971/3 "2002-06-14T14:09:35Z")
I know that many of our members are great fans of ZoneAlarm, but most of the networking professionals I’ve spoken to pooh-pooh the idea. Look for example to what SamSpade (very usefull site) has to say: (from [here](http://www.samspade.org/d/firewalls.html)) > [@](#): > > A ‘personal firewall’ isn’t a firewall. > [snip] > So… what does a ‘personal firewall’ actually do? Well, effectively it listens on all the ports on your system. This provides no real additional security over turning off the services that you don’t use. > [snip] > The bottom line is this… If you care about your home network security a lot, and you’re interested in it, spend the time to learn about networking and build yourself a standalone firewall. > > If you don’t want to spend that amount of energy on it, buy a standalone dedicated NAT or NAT+firewall box. I like the NetGear RT-311 and its siblings, but there’re a bunch of others out there too. It’ll sit there, do its job and never bother you again. > > If you want to play with a piece of windows software that makes you click all over the place, there’s always minesweeper. Conclusion: Go buy your father a hardware firewall. And look! It’s almost Fathers Day! (I have to admit that I don’t speak from first hand experience. I have never managed a windows system with broadband access. All I know is geaned from overhearing conversations, and websurfing. **If** I were to get broadband access at home, I would quickly go and get a NAT box, or set up an old PC as linux firewall.)