Hi,

I recently ditched norton internet security (guess why) and installed AVG and zone alarm. AVG works great but I am having some issues configuring zone alarm.

Firstly - do I really need a firewall? Is it essential?

Basically, if I enable zonealarm it blocks EVERYTHING. I can't get on the internet, none of my poker software works. I went through the settings and enables most things, so now the internet and some of my poker software works, but there are still a load of things which are blocked and I can't find how to make it all work. I have gone into the program control area to try to enable all the programs I use but there is still a lot of stuff that does not work.

Anyone know of a good guide to setting up zonealarm?

Thanks

Good choice of ZA and AVG. ZA is not 100% necessary to be honest. I personally use it, but I feel fully confident without it. However, ZA should not automatically block everything without your permission. What it should do is block everything BUT give you a small pop-up window asking if you want to continue blocking the program or allow it to connect to the net. That is standard for the way ZA works. If the program is something that def. needs to connect to the internet like Internet Explorer, Firefox, poker sites etc, then then can be allowed to always connect to the net

If ZA isn't working correctly or you can't figure it out, honestly you'll be just fine uninstalling it. Just make sure if you are using XP that the Windows Firewall is enabled and if you are using Vista ZA isn't 100% functional with it anyway, so that could explain the problems.

Ok - thanks for the help - I think I will just do without it for the momemnt

You can change ZA setting down, it has three degrees of security.