I have heard it is bad to use more than one firewall or more than one antivrus at the same time (installed on the same machine). But I don't have any facts to back that up nor technical reasons.
I used to LOVE zonealarm.. but be careful now it is often bundled with their AV which sucks... and the whole interface sucks after that point. Do they still offer just a firewall?
I would also add that IMO Norton AV doesn't suck. It is great for a non technical user. It does have a tendency to take over ones computer similar to how quicktime does in terms of file association control, etc... However, It can be controlled and I think it works pretty good. There are virii that specifically target Norton and shut it down. But they also target many others. Whatever you do don't use Black Ice that would be my only statement. I do find that Norton Internet Security (the firewall program) sucks. The interface sucks and also the technical abilities of the firewall itself.
Spybot and Ad-Aware are excellent programs and can be used in conjunction with each other. Amazingly so I have found that Microsoft's Adware program ( which is free) is excellent also. It will find many things that neither of the above will. I guess they bought it from someone who knew what they were doing.
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