A firewall is a software (as well as a hardware)

A good firewall, during installation, does not have to tell you about the incompatibility of their drivers with the operating system. If this happens, you should think about why developers are spared the money for certification of their products. A good firewall should be able to work with Security Center Windows XP. Once installed, it must be able to disable the built-in firewall in Windows XP and you should not receive messages that your system is under threat due to the fact that there is no firewall installed.

Firewall is nice to "know" all the most popular applications and integrated services Windows XP, who should get access to the network and the Internet. You should not receive the message that Internet Explorer or Microsoft Outlook trying to access the Internet after installing firewall. Proper firewall will tell you that these applications access is granted automatically, and will disturb you only when a real threat. A good firewall should be fast. If the files are being copied across the network increased 2-fold after installing firewall, then this is a bad firewall. Such tardiness could be justified only by its ultra-reliable. At this point, you decide that you are important. Safety - it is always a balance between convenience and reliability. To choose for themselves.