Originally Posted by
green granite
Rather than uninstalling zone alarm just untick it in the start-up menu, reboot and start windows firewall, that way you can go back to it if not running it makes no difference.
Is Windows FW as good as Zone alarm, not in my opinion, as it lets anything connect to the net where as ZA asks first.
Ignore the above. ZoneAlarm hooks itself into the network stack, so any disabling by unticking doesn't actually remove it (and you get more into these sort of issues because you lose the user interface but the PC keeps the hooks, and blocks, in the network stack).
And yes, the task bar (part of Windows Explorer) being restarted would square with being able to regain control.
Windows Firewall is "adequate". It depends upon which version of Windows you're running as to it's abilities:
With the Windows XP version it will block all incoming network traffic initiated from outside but will (unless configured) allow all outbound traffic initiated from the machine itself (which is fine unless you already have malicious software already on the machine).
With the Windows Vista & Windows 7 versions, you can configure it to block both ways if necessary.
The reasons I believe it's the best firewall to use, is because for 99.99% of people here they're using it behind a router which provides NAT and a firewall already. These people would only *need* a firewall on the PC if they were to have a laptop and take it to a coffeeshop etc where they were in danger of sitting on the same wet piece of string as other coffee drinkers with dubious virus protection habits, or in some cases opened up to the elements without it's own firewall.
The Windows firewall, with it's general abilities of blocking incoming traffic but letting outgoing traffic work means in the main that it's immune to user error whereby the firewall would ask a question of the user such as "Windows Explorer is trying to access the internet. Should I block it or not?". Obviously, for the uninitiated, the answer is "yes, block it". However, that's probably what you've just done and it's rendered your computer broken to a certain extent. The Windows firewall on the other hand "knows" how Windows does networking, and "knows" what your individual PC has installed on it in the way of applications, and finally it gets updated with Windows. All 3 of these methods mean it's almost impossible to get the symptoms you're describing with ZoneAlarm.
Now, if you take the above with the information that ZoneAlarm blocks inbound and outbound traffic by default, and only allows through the firewall certain holes which you, the user, define. You can then see that since you're the human element in this jigsaw you're the most likely element not to be in full possession of the facts when asked to make a decision such as the one described in the previous paragraph. So technically, yes, it's a more 'secure' firewall than the Windows firewall, but when you put it into context that it places a LOT more emphasis on relying upon you, the user, to decide things which could either block something you rely upon or, worse still, open up a hole (forever more) for something you shouldn't really leave open, then you can see why I think things like ZoneAlarm can sometimes be worse than the hackers that it attempts to protect you from.
Remember, Windows O/Ss do a LOT of 'networking' behind the scenes that you may not be aware of. Block that at your peril.
HTH.
Mike.