I've been using WinXPs firewall, since I heard it's pretty damn good. Before I was a big fan of ZoneAlarm's. I installed the ZoneAlarm firewall tonight for kicks to see the amount of attempts I had on my computer. In a span of 15-20minutes, 20 attacks. Unreal. Is there any way for windows' firewall to show the attempts? I mean when these guys are tryin to "intrude" are they probing for ports? To get acces to my computer files? Or to take over the computer? Or both/everything? This is kinda freaky, I'm just considering keeping ZoneAlarm, just because I like the fact that I can actually SEE the attempts that are being blocked here.
The attempts you see will be all possible exploits - open ports, taking over your PC, planting malware on your PC, grabbing personal files - whatever they are able to get away with. Whereas the Windows XP firewall is excellent for preventing inbound connections, it's not capable of detecting and preventing outbound connections which may occur if you get a trojan on your PC which then tries to "phone home". So although it is possible to set up logging for the XP firewall, (Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Advanced tab > Security Logging Settings) I'd recommend that you stick with ZoneAlarm since that will not only provide you with a neater and more user-friendly logging system but you'll also have outbound protection in place which is another valuable security layer to have.
Okay thanks guys. Now would you recommend I turn off Windows' firewall? Leaving ZA alone? Or not? I'm just using the basic version (free one, obviously). Thanks again
