XP PRO F'wall, and/or Other?

Hate to sound like a stuck record... but after reading about XP PRO's inbuilt firewall and so on, I wondered...

So, I shut it off tonight, briefly, and reinstalled my "beloved" ol' ZA 2.6.231 free firewall, but then seemed to have some trouble connecting to web pages - ideas on why, perhaps? I also wonder about the merits of going to 3rd party f'wall, so as to potter a bit w/settings; if any of you also have that "gearhead" thing at heart as do I, it's (both fun) and serious to work on overall security.

And, I've read that one skates on thin ice with chance of breaking the system if you have one too many, similar security apps., - true/false, in your opinion? Right now, I've so many security programs that I fully expect to lock myself out, any day now. ;-)

And re above paragraph, and this is a bit off topic: I was going to reinstall NOD32 but their info says to have NO OTHER GOD BEFORE THEE, before installing it. So, I have to kill all other AVs, and similar apps, before I fire up NOD32 again? Any experienced users, to comment on that please, lest I get carried away?

(I have XP PRO set up and humming along well, two weeks after I got it, and the next big worry is backup/strategy).

Cheers, SG1 (Pat)

 

Use Kerio Personal Firewall 4.2 or Zone Alarm 6 free and fire up Nod32 with that great bit of protection u will get.Maybe ZAP Pro V6 with antispyware wont be a bad idea too.