I have been using the ZoneAlarm Free firewall for years, and I recently installed A-Squared Anti-Malware (good for one year, from a free offering somewhere or other, might have been GAOTD).

Now I frequently get A-Squared pop-up balloons in the lower right-hand corner telling me that "such-and-such server" is trying to access my computer. I can either accept or reject the intrusion. Since I have never recognized the name of the server, I always chose "reject". Recently (I think) A-Squared started giving me the option to always accept or always reject that server. Now I always reject, and I do not have as many warnings.

Question one: Should not Zone Alarm be rejecting intrusions like this before they get to A-Squared Anti-Malware?

Question two: I can understand getting requests to set cookies from sites you are visiting -- But how are third party cookies able to sneak through fire walls?

Question three: I can understand that sites have to be able to redirect your browser to another page on that site. However, thanks to the "Verify Redirect" extension in Firefox, I see many attempted redirects to sites that have nothing to do with the site I am visiting.

Quite often a redirect may be to a site that is obviously a tracking site. "Verify Redirect" gives me the option to always accept or always reject that server. I reject almost all requests with no problems of getting to where I want to. But shouldn't ZoneAlarm be preventing these redirect requests?

Question four: All too frequently I get a request to set a cookie by just letting the mouse pass over a url. Since I did not click on the url, how can ZoneAlarm allow the url to be activated?

Question five: Are these "faults" of ZoneAlarm peculiar to ZoneAlarm, or are they typical of all firewalls?

Thanks for all your comments! -- Hi Pockets

P.S. -- I am very impressed with A-Squared Anti-Malware, and will probably pay for the next year. I'm thinking about changing to Comodo Personal Firewall (also free). I have had some experience with it on a friend's computer.