free online virus scan and removal In XP the Windows Firewall is basically half a firewall. You can't really set up rules for traffic or anything like that. In Vista you can set up rules by using the "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" shortcut in Administrative Tools or just running WF.msc and you're able to configure the firewall much more effectively than in XP. It's still not up to Comodo or ZoneAlarm's level for monitoring, but it would suffice. Oh, and I stopped using ZoneAlarm when it started causing massive trouble on my PC. Apps were hanging and crashing, etc... Once I removed ZoneAlarm everything was fine.