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Concerns Over Security Software
Arthbunot Bullwinkle writes to mention a BBC article exploring concerns about the future of security software. The piece looks at trends toward 'free' security products, such as ZoneAlarm, and wonders aloud about where those products will find themselves after Windows Vista is released. From the article: "'Now maybe the good ones will actually get rid of that attack but at the same time they may drop maybe 10 or 20 other attacks onto your system.' The bottom line, according to Mr Day, is that when you download free security software you cannot be certain what you get. But completely free security software may be a thing of the past when the new version of Windows hits the shops early next year. "
ZoneAlarm is itself malware. See the first two questions on this page.
There's another solution - put your MS Windows machine under adult supervision with a network card that runs another OS and has a firewall with a web front end on it. External hardware firewalls are another answer and are a lot cheaper than the internal ones - but both avoid the problem of having to be comaptible mith the new Micrsoft Internet Protocol stack by only dealing with the packets - TCP, UDP or whatever. The only way third party networking stuff would run with Vista if the networking stack really is very new is if the apps were altered to work with Vista.