Hi ;D I wanted to know that what is the different between Anti-virus and window firewall? Are they same? ???
They are totally different and have different functions, so there is no comparison. A firewall, specifically ‘windows’ firewall provides zero anti-virus protection and effectively hides your computer from the net so you don’t get speculative IP address attacks. It doesn’t provide any outbound protection (XP firewall) and very limited outbound protection (Vista firewall, which is off by default). Once something gets past your firewall it does ‘nothing’ to detect virus infection.
A stand alone anti-virus doesn’t provide firewall protection. avast being slightly different in that it has the network shield, which provides very limited network protection against common virus/worm routes of entry (but that shouldn’t mean you don’t need a firewall) and the web shield also provides limited protection against virus attack on pages you visit.
FIREWALLS - It should be capable of blocking unauthorised outbound Internet Connections.
Windows XP’s firewall is better than no firewall but, it lulls you into a false sense of protection, it doesn’t provide outbound protection. Whilst the windows XP firewall is usually good at keeping your ports stealthed (hidden) it provides no outbound protection and you should consider a third party firewall.
Any malware that manages to get past your defences will have free reign to connect to the internet to either download more of the same, pass your personal data (sensitive or otherwise, user names, passwords, keylogger retrieved data, etc.) or open a backdoor to your computer, so outbound protection is essential.
Thanks DavidR
Your welcome.
i dont think windows firewall is good enough to provide real protection. I’d advise you to use either comodo, zone alarm free, or PC tools firewall. You will have to click through many more “allow this action” type menus but its worth it 
If you have a hardware firewall in your modem/router does that keep things safe with just the XP software firewall or is there still no outbound cover?
Unless your hardware router/firewall comes with a software firewall (and specifically says so) it doesn’t provide outbound protection. So if you only have the XP firewall, which also doesn’t have outbound protection then you need a third party firewall.