Thetownend.com

http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/sum/index.html

plus a years free updates!

Cant be bad....

Zonealarm always used to be the default firewall choice for many, but i think the standard of their product and the annoying as fuck installation/upgrade pushed many away. I for one will never use a new version of Zonealarm again. (I still use it, but it's gotta be at least 2 years old and the new versions i've seen are horrid.)

Thanks for that though, maybe this will save me getting a new firewall and i can just use that in an amazing twist of opinion. :)

This type of so called firewall really fucks me off nowadays. Resource hogging rubbish. I prefer a router with NAT/SPI and I really couldn't give a fuck about outbound.

Talking of software stuff, is there free stuff for Virus checkers people can recomment? My Norton free trial has expired and I don't want to pay for it.

Thanks in advance

There's a few good free ones
AVG
Avast
Avira
All can be found here www.filehippo.com

Personally, I don't use an AV. If I did i'd go for Avast, a lot of good features for free. You have to register it within 60 days. Don't worry though, it's free registration and you get 18 months of updates. 

I find Avira to be perfectly adequate for AV.

I use Avast on my laptop and AVG on my PC, no issues with either and both free.

I've had avast for 4 years i think and it just keeps updating itself.

  Be warned on AVG that the current update is apparently wiping user32.dll and therefore rendering xp machines useless and requireing a reinstall.

Indeed.

1579:
AVG 7.5 - False positive "user32.dll" (DB: 270.9.0/1777)

In case you are not able to run your Windows XP operating system after AVG 7.5 virus definition update, it may be caused by a false positive on a specific "user32.dll" system file. The file was moved to the AVG Virus Vault and deleted. Therefore it is not possible to start Windows. Please follow the steps below to rectify this situation:

In case you do not have Windows XP installation CD with the latest updates, we strongly recommend you to use our fix tool instead. The mentioned fix tool can be found in FAQ 1580.

WARNING! There is a high probability of incompatibility with other system files (for example with winsrv.dll) if the latest installation CD is not used. This can also cause inabitity to start operating system.

1. Please insert the Windows XP installation CD and boot computer from this CD (if you do not have the installation CD please follow steps mentioned in our FAQ 1580).

2. Choose and run Recovery Console.

3. Choose Windows operating system you want to repair.

4. Disable AVG Resident Shield from loading. You can disable loading services/drivers with "disable" command, i.e. you have to type the following commands (some

of them might not be present in all AVG editions):

disable Avg7Core
disable Avg7RsW
disable AvgClean
disable Avg7RsXP
disable AvgMfx86

5. Restore the User32.dll file from the Windows XP installation CD (instead "D:" use letter of your CD-ROM drive):

expand D:\i386\user32.dl_ c:\windows\system32\

In case the command fails, please use the following command to rename original user32.dll and repeat the command above.

ren user32.dll user32.bak

6. Restart computer and boot Windows normally.

7. In order to re-enable the AVG Resident Shield services we recommend that you perform the AVG repair installation as follows:

- Download the latest AVG installation package (AVG 7.5 for Windows) from the following webpage and save it on your hard disk:

http://www.grisoft.com/doc/downloads?prd=avw
(AVG Anti-Virus)
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/downloads?prd=isw
(AVG Internet Security)
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/downloads?prd=amw
(AVG Anti-Malware)
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/downloads?prd=afw
(AVG Anti-Virus plus Firewall)

- Click on the "AVG 7.5 for Windows" link to download the installation file.

- When you are prompted, please do not open this file directly from the internet, but click the Save button and choose a location, where the installation file should be stored. We recommend saving the file to the Desktop.
- Restart your computer.
- Locate the downloaded AVG installation file (it has a four color square icon and its name starts with AVG75...) and launch the installation by double-clicking on it.
- Follow the installation wizard.
- When prompted, please select the Repair installation option.
- Restart your computer and update AVG.

Oh dear...I guess you are OK if you are running v8 which is the latest available version.

:eek: I'm running AVG, but only the free version. Is it only the paid version that's effected?

It only affects non-English language versions of XP i believe

I run AVG on laptops, and have literally just updated about 4. No problem found.

It's on a Vista machine.

I removed Zonealarm from a laptop and a desktop a few months back as they were causing far too many issues.