Fire my firewall?

[DigiTan]

I'm using an NVidia firewall that came bundled with my motherboard. It seems to be keeping out the riffraff as far as I know. But after using ZoneAlarm on my previous computer, it seems like I have considerably less control over what passes and what get blocked. Lately, I've been noticing my favorites like maxcoderz and digikey.com will be blocked unless I disable it or go though Vtunnel. There's no other setting so far that corrects this.

Should I stick with the NVidia firewall, switch to windows firewall, or go with a 3rd-party prog like ZoneAlarm? Also is it weird to use multiple firewalls?

[Harrierfalcon]

I don't know anything about those, but I don't think Windows Firewall helps that much. I had to rebuild my computer 3 times to purge VirusBurster, before my uncle took pity and got me WebRoot Firewall/Spy Sweeper for Christmas. After I installed that my computer is pretty much protected against everything, without the inconvenience of permitting sites. Only sites "with malicious content" are blocked, and when something tries to access the web, you are notified and you can choose whether or not to allow it.

Sorry if this sounds more like an advertisement than a suggestion, but Webroot has worked for me without fail, so if you plan to use a 3rd-party firewall, get Webroot.

[elfprince13]

windows firewall is fine as that, a firewall. it isn't designed to keep out malware, just hackers.


if you have a hardware firewall on your router, even better, use that.....

[DigiTan]

Nah, it's okay (all the 3rd party recommendations). I'm trying to get some input on as many 3rd-party progs allowable. Also, I should mention the school might have a software deal with Norton but I'm not sure about that.

[AlienCC]

Get rid of that nvidia firewall fast!!! That thing was corrupting my ethernet packets in the past, especially when I was trying to download linux/bsd iso images.

--AlienCC

[DigiTan]

Ew! I have noticed yahoo mail tends to screw up lately. Speaking of iso's is there a good freeware prog that can create them? I found one but it only lets you go up to 300MB.

[elfprince13]

I believe there is a windows port of dd which lets you do this.

[AlienCC]

This one has proven useful for me in the past:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm

I've heard good things about this one:
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/download.php

Another interesting guide:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/s...eptember16.mspx

That should be enough to get you started for now.

--AlienCC

[NETWizz]

The Nvidia firewall was crashing my computer. IT caused Azureus to unload often.

Additionally, I was getting nvtcp.sys blue screens of death. I removed the firewall and driver and never have seen another BSOS. It has been a year.

[Vinthian]

http://mattbthompson.blogspot.com/2007/01/...to-replace.html

i'd recommend some of the software on that list. i just started using comodo firewall after i found it. about multiple firewalls, i wouldn't do that... using 1 good firewall replaces multiple firewalls, because sometimes it makes your connection very limited. b/c you'd have allow a program or port on all of your firewalls, which can be annoying.

[Arcane Wizard]

Doesn't the Nvidia one require apache server to be running locally? I loled and pressed uninstall.

[DigiTan]

There are a bunch of apache folders that came bundled in their NetworkAccessManager folders. It looks like they went out of their way to make it hard to get rid of because there's no uninstallation resources whatsoever. Somebody said you have to uninstall the whole ethernet driver!

[Arcane Wizard]

My del key worked fine.

[DigiTan]

I dunno. There isn't any folder that says specifically where the firewall exe is. And it's not in the add/remove listing. It's almost like they don't want me to delete it. :ninja:

[Arcane Wizard]

Disable the windows service and delete the whole NVidia Corporation folder.

[DigiTan]

Where do I disable the windows service? (Getting rid of the NVidia Corp folder won't mess with my display/ethernet will it?)

[Arcane Wizard]

msconfig.exe and reboot or services.msc.

The drivers are placed in the Windows system folder, not in the NVidia Corp~ folder, so your hardware operability will not be affected unless you yourself relied on any of the (silly) programs there (Windows does not).

[DigiTan]

What should I be looking for in msconfig? There's like 100 processes running.

[threefingeredguy]

Could be in the Startup tab. Also, you should get CCleaner and see if it will uninstall it.

[Arcane Wizard]

Services tab, actually, for the services anyway. (Everything in msconfig applies to start up, so go figure why it has a start up tab, Microsoft probably ran out of retarded ordering conventions to use. Or maybe they burned out all their energy again and again on failing to come up with a better way than A-Z to label drive volumes.)

services.msc is better for managing services, though.

Disable whatever services you don't need (any more). If you use msconfig you either have to close the processes yourself (file->exit, or ctrl+alt+del or whatever) or reboot. services.msc closes the service processes for you.

If you don't know what you can (the service that offers your registry for editing to any client) or can't close (sound services), post your list.

Finally, since the files are no longer being executed, you can delete them.