Antivirus

[Buffalobiian]

So i got ESET NOD32 Antivirus and it has worked great so far but i'm worried that it doesn't come with a firewall, i'm currently using windows' firewall.

Any advice on what i should get for a firewall? I'm looking for something good but that doesn't bother me much with settings and memory usage.

Do you have a router or a modem router with either NAT or SPI firewall. All modern and good (ie, not some cheap brand your ISP might endorse) should have it. If you do, it's not so important, since hardware firewalls block pretty much all types of entries anyway.

If you want a free firewall, I'd recommend Zone Alarm. It's not "light" per se, it's using 55MB or RAM right now (Internet suit edition). I've never tried any other firewall, so I don't know how they rate on the energy scale.

As for settings, I've always put mine on "ask me about everything", so whenever a program changes on an update or when you install something new, you'd get quite a few alerts until you teach it what to do about them. There's a learning mode which I've never used, but it monitors your computer and "learns" about what it should bother you about.

Main reason I'm using it is because I used it in the past, and I'm addicted to reading how much and what kind of traffic is entering/leaving my system. (The little icon in the sys tray has upload (red) and download (green) bars to show this)

Anyway, see what all the other guys have to say, since I've never tried other software firewalls to give an overall picture.

(Reiterate: If you've got a hardware firewalled router, the software one is only useful for blocking LAN peers or people on an unsecured wireless network. Windows Firewall does a good enough job at that. I'm only using mine for the bars. )

And I'm jealous you've got NOD32