Hassle free firewall

My mother is a novice computer user, uses the internet for email, surfing the net, banking. She always shuts her computer down after she uses it and doesn't download anything. She's running windows xp. Here's the problem, she's pretty high strung at the best of times, is now overwhelmed and blasting off emails to me (we live on opposite sides of the country) every time a popup appears from Zone Alarm. I had a tech guy at her work reformat her hd as it was so bogged down, had him remove Dell's bloatware, in particular McAfee's security suite. He installed the free edition of Avast anti virus, Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition, and Firefox. I run all 3 programs and can help her with any problems that come up. However, I don't run Zone Alarm and am looking for a simple firewall that's easy to configure, pretty much set it up and let it do it's thing and allow me to open up my email without having to answer multiple questions about her computer.
Any suggestions? Would she be okay just running Windows Firewall seeing as she's not logged on for extended periods of time?

 

Looking at her browsing habits, she'd be better off without a firewall, or just with the Windows XP's firewall, IMVHO. Just make sure her anti-virus runs in the back-ground and is regularly updated, and an anti-crapware like Windows Defender too, if possible.

 

yep. a good vire scanner, and ordinary windows firewall is enough for a mom. it's enough for everyone who is not paranoid actually.

 

One of those very rare occasion - +1

To OP - take a look at SpywareBlaster as well

cheers ...

 

Thanks folks, much appreciated.

 

I've said this in other forums before too, but, have you considered installing sandboxie, and running her web browser sandboxed???? will drastically increase your safety margin, as itll trap malware in teh sandbox you might pick up while browsing, and when you kill the sandbox you kill the malware preventing any permanent changes to the pc, the os, or the browser.

Sandboxie is freeware by the way.



ev

 

Can I ask, what's the downside?

 

windows firewall is enough for the computer to protect the new threats.
scan the computer with the installed anti virus with in a month.
always delete the temp and the prefetch files from the computer.
download the software from the most popular sites do not click on the pop ups.

 

You will have to setup/configure Sandboxie for your mother for if she want to actually download a file or email attachment.
Normally everything that occured during a sandboxed browsing session (for instance) will be deleted after ending the session.
So, for example, also the photo's of her grand children that she downloaded during a sandboxed email/webmail session will be erased if the sandboxed browsing session is ended.
You'll have to configure SBIE and give her a bit of explanation on how to actually download and safe stuff.
It's really not difficult but it requires a bit of input on your behalf.
Cheers.

 

Thanks. Just to be clear, I asked the question about the downside, but I'm not the OP. I was just curious because it sounded good.

 

Right! Persnickety+mask≠Voltaire

 

Haha, well played

 

If Avast is installed you dont really need a firewall, just make sure all the services are set up (which they probably already are) and done

 

after a month, every time you run sandboxie, itll give you a five second pause saying its not the PAID version, then continue on like normal. thats about it.

Been using sandboxie for about three months now,and liked it so much i installed it on two family puters i by default ended up supporting as a computer guy of the family. im sure you all know how that is.

These two problem puters (and owners) had incessant malware issues. over and over. so, after installing sandboxie, problem seems to have gone away.


ev