Help me with my firewall

[willmiller]

What will be a better one firewall I can download and use for free, that will come with my windows xp and won't slow it down?

[TrampolineFrSpace]

You posted this same query in the LP Forum General Chat section.

If you upgrade to SP2, there is a firewall builtin.  I don't know much about it and/or how well it works and whether or not it bogs down the system.

At my home system, I have an internet firewall/router/wireless access point.  It's fairly easy to manage since you just point a web browser at the builtin webserver in the device and you can manage it.

Firewalls that work will close down server sockets that you don't want open to the world.  Your best defense is to have the firewall in a separate system, because if someone manages to hack past your defenses, it's best to be on a box that doesn't really anything of value on it.

If you need help with your internet/local network setup, it would help me to know what ethernet adapters (NICs) that you have and your network topology.

There aren't too many of the members in either location that have the technical expertise that you seem to need.

I've done TCP/IP network programming, router configurations, and some similar stuff, so I'm familiar with the basics, but some of this is going to require some research on my part.

[TrampolineFrSpace]

When I did this google search, it appeared that comodo seemed to be recommended by the sites that came up towards the top of the list.

Here is one site that seems to have some recommendations.