firewalls and popup blockers?

what firewall should u use and does anybody know of a good popup blocker?

i know alot of people use the free version of zone alarm, you could probably go to www.downloads.com and find a grunt load to try for free. probably holds true for popup blockers, and heck, while your there you just may find something else interesting...

I use Sygate for a firewall and Pop-Up Stopper....both are the registered versions and work well together...used Zone Alarm for several years but used to many resources for me and caused other problems as well with their true vector program...know that it doesn't probably make sense to you having never run it...but there are several others who have had the same problem....

ya i have read some annoying stuff about zonealarm that is why i asked here what firewall i should use

my brother used it, the free one and pro, the only problems he had was removal, you have to get into the reg. and take things out manually and that made him nervous but other than that, he didnt have problems. personally, im behind a router and dont use firewalls at all, and my brother has given up firewalls up too, he just shuts his cable modem off when not in use.

I have a router also...but that only takes care of the incoming...what about those that are outgoing from your system...and I'm sure there must be some of those....

ive run several security scans at www.dslreports.com unless i open things up in my router config, my machines are unpingable. i do have 2 ports open all the time for winmx. but i just shut my modem off when im done. i may be living in a fantasy world, but if i cant be seen, i wouldnt think that someone is going to pick their way into my machine, like i have any govt. secrets or anything, i guess worst case is make it some kind of zombie machine, but i would think something would give me a clue that something strange was going on, in which case fdisk and format are something im familiar with.:)

ya i guess i dont really need a firewall and as for the popup stopper i am trying Stop!zilla

For popups, I use Crazy Browser. It's similar in look/layout to IE but is tabbed and has an excellent built-in popup killer. I haven't had a single popup reach my computer in the over 6 months I've been using it. I'm running XP Home and have PC-cillin as my AV which also has a 2 way firewall. I've not had any conflicts between Crazy Browser and PC-cillin either.

i liek crazy broswer alot man thanx for the info

notpostal...are you sure PC-cillin is a 2 way firewall..use it here but never checked any outgoing stuff for me....????did you do a leaktest at ??

http://www.grc.com

mine never passed with the PC-cilin firewall...

Lynn...Thanks for the heads up! I did the Leak Test and it failed on mine also. PC-cillin is a 2-way firewall. Right click the Icon in the System Tray and Open Main. Go to Setting>Personal Firewall>Security Level and move the slide bar to High and Apply. The discription states that it blocks both incoming and outgoing traffic unless allowed in the Exception List. Obviously, either I don't have the Exception List configured correctly or if I have it correct the firewall isn't very good. How about looking at the Exception List for me and giving me your recommendations. Would appreciate it. Gary

Hi, I use Avant Opera browser, with built in popup stopper. It works great
and you can find it here.

http://www.avantbrowser.com/

I've used ZA pro with no problems on XP Pro. As far as pop-up stoppers, it's my understanding that almost all of them are based on manipulating the Hosts file in Windows. After installing a new (edited) hosts file, I've stopped around 98 percent of pop-ups (without effecting necessary pop-ups such as forum message notifications). When I get to a site that has a lot of pop-ups, I can hear the clicks, but no pop-up appears...works great! If you happen to get a pop-up, just include it's url into the host file and that'll take care of it next time. There are also sites that have many other listings to incorporate into the host file. Just be aware that if the file gets too long, it could slow your browsing speed a little bit (most noticable on a dial-up connection).

What Is The Hosts File (and Download)

In a nutshell, the edited host file contains the urls of a few hundred well known ad poppers (major sponsors). When you arrive at a site that has these pop-ups, the system is fooled into looking to your ISP address for the pop-up ad instead of its real url. Voila...no pop-up. The whole process is practically instananeous.

cool thanx bistro i just learned something new