As above, if I'm going through a broadband router? Surely it must slow things down if it's installed? ZoneAlarm by the way.

 

If your router has a built in SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) firewall then there is no need to use a software firewall such as Zone Alarm. Check your broadband router manual to see if it has a built in hardware firewall.

 

Why would it slow things down?

 

I would strongly advise that you KEEP zonelarm or something similar on your pc, The overhead on your processor is minimal and it wont slow your internet connection down.

Also keep your antivirus software upto date, and use adaware, spybot etc

 

Keep your personal firewall installed and check the log files now and then, you'll be suprised by what get's to your desktop.

 

Just activate your windows XP firewall to see whats going on, tell you, you wont want to ditch it then

Tony

 

If your router has a firewall use that. I kept zonealarm installed for a while until I trusted my firewall on my router. Absolutely zip got through the router firewall.

 

It's worth having both - no harm in it and if your router was compromised, you have a back up. We advise clients on corporate networks to have dual firewalls - in serial, using different manufacturers. OK, this is not so much of an issue for the average PC user, but it doesn't hurt.

There are so many points at which the Internet connection could slow down (i.e. number of users sharing your DSL connection at a particular time, server response times, router loads etc etc) that ZoneAlarm will make no difference.

Microsoft's Antispyware software is very effective and available free at the moment. Well worth having this too.