BlackICE and/or Zone Alarm

[Justin]

I will be getting DSL in my house very soon and I want to be very prepared. Here are my questions.

1. Does anyone use BlackICE and Zone Alarm together? If yes, do they work well? Or are the 2 together redundant?

2. Which product (BlackICE or Zone Alarm) is better? Ease of use, security, etc. I will have 4 computers attached to my DSL modem/router (Netopia DSL modem with 8port RJ45 interface) and I want to make sure they are all secure. Will I have to install the software on each machine individually or do I need to setup a stand-alone machine to act as a firewall with the software on it?

3. Do any of the products take up much bandwidth? Will I notice it?

4. My daughter will have access to the internet via one of these 4 machines. Are these products good for child "internet safety?" Or should I buy a seperate product just for the machine she will be using?

5. Last but not least: I noticed that there are 3 versions of BlackICE. Which one is the best for my situation (home user with 4 PC's attached to DSL)? The Pro, Defender or Sentry?

Thank you all for taking the time to read my questions. All of your input is greatly appreciated.

Justin

[Baitcaster]

justin,

I am running both BlackICE and zone alarm.
There are a few things to know about zone, or u won't be able to connect.
After you install, in the security section, make sure the sliders are set to medium, and that block local, and internet servers is unchecked.
Been running both since the new version of zone came out, with no problems.
As far as using them with a local lan, I have no clue. Just 1 pc here.
As far as using them as blockers for unwanted sites,get net nanny.
Blackice and zone alarm are not made for blocking "porn" so to speak, Just to protect you from hackers. And you won't even notice that they are running. As far as i know, very low resourse users.
The rest, someone else will have to step up to the plate on, since I know NOTHING on home networking.

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[PhoneTech]

I suggest BlackIce Defender. I am using it on my host computer and it works great for protection on my hubbed computer also. I didn't really like Zone Alarm because it popped up too many times during surfing. As for your kids protection I suggest using an independent safe surfing program on her computer like net-nanny or something like that.

[KillaPete]

I suggest Norton Security 2000. It combines firewall, personal settings (for the kids), add removal, and mointors your ports for outgoing and incoming packets.


you can try their trialware

http://www.symantecstore.com/Pages/TBYB/nis2k.html

[bazilla]

I took a look at Zone Alarm last night, and if I understood, it will not work if you are using NAT software, which would also rule out Win98se/Win2k ICS.

But Win98se/Win2k ICS is reasonably secure if you make sure you don't have file and print sharing on the shared NIC. To explain, with DSL you will have two NIC's in the computer with the DSL modem -- one connecting to the LAN, and the other connecting to the modem and from there to the internet. Just disable file and print sharing on the NIC that connects to the modem (referred to as the "shared" NIC in Win ICS terminology).

I have my DSL/home network set up this way, and checked it with secure-me and it passed fine (zero score). Not a firewall, but the next best thing. If your DSL line is dynamically allocated an IP, you shouldn't have much to worry about from a security point of view.

-Baz