Zone Alarm
 

If I leave the computer for a while I cannot get onto the internet unless I set Zone Alarm (free version) to medium security. I assume that this leaves me open to outside access.

Anyone else have this problem?

If Zone Alarm is not going to work for me, is there another downloadable firewall I can use?

Have you checked the 'Lock' settings? I leave my machine on-line 24x7 and dont have a problem with Zone Alarm.

Again just very little info to guess what your problem is....if you run XP, make sure to have the built-in firewall switched off...

Yes it is XP, and I was not aware of a built-in firewall. I did a search for it, but could not find such an animal. How do I turn it off (or on)?

Go Network connections, right-click on your particular dial-up, select properties, then the advanced tab which should give the firewall dialogue.

And good luck

With a little searching I had found it, thanks. I am presently using the XP firewall and have set Zone Alarm to Minimum, which is working well for me so far as the programs are operating without hangups, but now I wonder if the XP firewall is good enough? Surely it cannot be that simple?

I can only strongly recommend, that if you use ZoneAlarm, you switch off the XP firewall. There are plenty of reports that they do not get along well. It is not ZoneAlarm which creates the trouble...also other firewalls have problems with the XP built-in version.
And it is obvious for many out there after tests, that even a self-built firewall protects better than the XP one...

Plus you can configure Zone Alarm to tell you when XP is trying to phone home & send data to Microsoft :-) You'll be surprised .....