same here
and I’m agree with Tech, all what he said is right, it’s 4-5 years I don’t use ZoneAlarm, I feel my windows is ill when ZoneAlarm is installed, ZoneAlarm was a good Firewall for Windows XP many years ago.
I think currently Online Armor and Outpost are good choices.
So that issue with ZA still hasn’t been resolved after all these years Tech ? ???
please correct me if i’m wrong, but it seems that a combination of avast home edition + any of the freebie firewalls listed on matousec and rated excellent is better than the mcafee i currently have protecting my computer
Stay away from Comodo.
Currently Online Armor and Outpost are good choices.
of course avast! antivirus is much better than McAfee, both on Protection and performance.
and again same about McAfee firewall in compare to all better firewall which you can find for free.
yes, you are right, avast! + a good free firewall is better than your McAfee suite.
PCTools is another good choice and it’s easy to use. 
it worked with some problem for me after first run after install, I did not feel comfortable with it.
but it has a good protection level and PC Tools is a good company and of course Bob3160 who recommended it is more trusted here 
bottom line: it won’t be hard to improve on the mcafee i currently have. but i wonder why at&t seems to endorse it for their customers? in fact, it used to be a free download from att/yahoo site, but now they want to charge $5/month to use it. if the stuff i’m reading here is true, how do they get away with it?
Thanks for all the responses guys! It helped in my decision quite a bit.
@tiresias
Don’t let them have the $5/month no matter how much they want you to pay more.
AT&T will grab as much as you are willing to give them.
Look around for a new ISP as you probably could get better price and service with another ISP.
YoKenny, can you recommend another ISP? Also, I wonder if now that they are charging for mcafee, some changes for the better are in the future.
Where are you? There are a lot of ISPs that provide better service than AT&T even through they use the AT&T lines for the local loop of data. AT&T leases out their lines (forced by FCC to be reasonable rates) and the ISP provides the rest of the services and the network. You can see what else is available in your area by going to http://www.dslreports.com/search or get recommendations from your neighbors.
i’m in los angeles, ca. whatever info you have about cheaper, better dsl is appreciated. contact me directly if can get my email from my profile. if not, let me know and i’ll give it to you on the forum. the only other services i know of is dslextreme, sonic, juno, and they are about the same as att. it seems there are only a handful of choices. but there ought to be hundreds!
Try the DSL Reports reference because they give user ratings from those in your area who use the various ISPs. I use DSLExtreme, and have been satisfied for 5 years of so, but am in San Diego. Generally I get 10 email accounts, free personal websites, a free firewall at the server level, and the email is outsourced to Gmail so there is virus/spam checking in both directions automatically. They also have an online support site on DSL Reports that is frequented by their General Manager as well as their support staff. Since AT&T lines are used to the Central Office, you get the same signal quality/rates no matter who you choose. The reason there are not more ISPs is that they need to install (or lease, like Earthlink) equipment in the Telco Central Office and set up a contract with AT&T on rates and number of lines, as well as work out the use of the servers on the internet for passing their data and all this costs money. Costs are generally similar these days, but features and customer satisfaction can be quite different. You generally need to sign a year contract to try a new ISP, since that is what AT&T requires from them, but can usually switch with no interruption.
I just did a quick look:
All reviews of DSL EXTREME
http://www.dslreports.com/comments/1434
All reviews of SONIC.NET
http://www.dslreports.com/comments/896
Broadband Internet
http://broadband.theispguide.com
What does dslextreme’s “free firewall at the server level” mean? What does it give me? Does this free firewall at server level take care of outgoing traffic, which would in turn allow me to use only Win XP Firewall (plus avast home) for incoming traffic, and thereby disregard this whole discussion?
At the server level, about all you can get is a very basic firewall as shown in the attachments. More like a router than a firewall in terms of protection, and really set up for inbound traffic. For outbound and intranet traffic, still need a software firewall in general. You can’t just block all outbound connections or your internet won’t work, so need to treat them by application, which only your computer (and software firewall) knows about. But try some of the free ones to see the differences in usability. Saying all of that, I used the Vista firewall along with Avast! for 6 months or so with no problems until I found something else I wanted to try, but was both careful and lucky.
Stay away from Comodo ? Why? I have been using Comodo firewall only with avast 4.8 with no problems what so ever. Running it along with iobit security 360 and they all work well together. System is Xp pro SP3. I browse with firefox and everything loads snappy fast. So could you elaborate why stay away from Comodo ?
thanks to all!
it has to do with some kind of commercial agreement they made with another entity. some people around here think they’ve sold out and are boycotting them. check some of the links on this thread for more info. and maybe someone out there can verify my assessment of this disdain for comodo.