I recently installed the aforementioned software but was was wondering If I should keep them installed considering my system is already protected by the hardware firewall of my USR8054 router ?
For Peerguardian I solely use the official Ads and Spyware lists. However the loading time of the videos on YouTube has been negatively affected because the program prevents the connection of the supposedly antagonistic ad.doubleclick.net. Apart from this I have been experiencing slow download/upload speeds with Windows Live Messenger and ?Torrent. Concerning the latter it continued after opening the required port (which was complicated with Zone Alarm - I am still not sure if my procedure was correct) or adding it to an allowed list for Peerguardian.
oh man back when I had ZA installed and downloaded something big with utorrent it would lock up and everything would stop.
BTW- Peerguardian 2 is not really the best at blocking ads, spyware, etc. it is really to block people like the MPAA, RIAA, HBO etc. from connecting with you. The other features of peerguardian is just to keep the anti-P2P companies from trying to shut them down.
If you have a hardware firewall and are not concerned about malware being run on your computer, it will be fine to unninstall ZoneAlarm and just enable the windoze firewall.
I have recently installed Zone Alarm Pro (version 7.0.362.000) along with PeerGuardian (version 2.0 Beta 6C) on my computer. Considering my network was already and currently still is protected by the hardware Firewall of my U.S Robotics router (model USR8054 802.11g wireless turbo with 1.67 firmware), have the previously mentioned applications actually strengthened the security of my computer or I should consider proceeding to uninstall them ?
Furthermore, I don't know which application is at fault, but I have experienced the following slowdowns since the installations (I am quite sure that my router is not at fault, it had already been previously configured and I had no issues with it for years):
1) MSN file transfer protocol is presently faster than the rise of democracy in North Korea.
2) The ?Torrent no incoming connection triangle o' doom appears in the aforementioned program's tray - files are still downloaded but the speed seems at first sight limited (false positive?).
