Help Me With My Firewall

[willmiller]

My firewall that comes with my windows xp slows down my computer. What will be a better one firewall I can download and use for free?  

[nais98]

 Try a search at:

www.download.com


for zone alarm.........the free one.

   

[John LeVous]

Quite often I've found that your computer is slow because you have many programs running in the background that you don't need.

There are a boat load of things that Windoz installs by default that you will never use. Also, many other programs install thing (such as auto updaters, and registration reminders) that load everytime you start your computer.

Open the task manager (using ctrl-alt-del) and click the tab for 'processes'.

Most systems have between 35 and 40 running processes even when idle.

If you have more than 40 to 45 you should look to see what is using the most memory any cpu resources. Find out what those processes are and disable them if you don't need them. (We'll talk about 'how to disable them' later).

[bill369]

 http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/04/12/slow_computer_speed_up_your.htm


 http://www.schoolkit.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10016


  Here's a few that show unnecessary processes that may be running(and, slowing your computer)


   If you have any popups (and, even if you don't),  use Adaware (it's free!)

 http://www.lavasoftusa.com/single/mirror_download.php?f=g2Obc772A

 Click on the 'update' button every few days.

 
 Also, try 'Spy-Bot Search And Destroy'  (also free!)

 http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html
(again, update regularly)


 And, finally, try Peer Guardian.    It's sort of like a firewall.   But, blocks individual IP's(internet addresses)
 
 http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
(update, update!)

 And, for a browser, I recommend Firefox.  (Much better, more stable, more features,/etc than IE)

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/


 Hopefully this helps.