Who has Zone Alarm? How do I stop it from interferring with internet usage?

[mr_lebowski]

11. Not to pile on but I concur ... I didn't have ANY A/V for many years ...

And only Windows Firewall, and used to visit a lot of sketchy sites, d/l from torrent and usenet ... simply paying close attention to extensions, and checking that file sizes match what is appropriate for what I *think* I'm getting (movies are not 128KB), and not clicking on links w/o knowing where I'm going (hover over them and the browser will show you the destination URL) and I *RARELY* picked up anything on my PC. Maybe twice in like 5 years of PC use every day w/no AV.

And the past like 8 years, since Win7 with Windows Security Essentials/Defender came out, wherein I manually scan anything I d/l (that I'm unsure of) before running, and use the weekly scan, I've had no issues.

Granted I'm a very experienced user, but the built in windows stuff nowadays + just a modicum of 'attention' to safe-surfing basics (and not letting 'kids' on your PC lol) should be enough for all but true novices, IMHO.