I have a dimension 4600 with XP. I've been using cable modem for a year and everything was working fine. I had a roommate come in 10/03 and we used his router to connect both of our PC's to the same broadband access. Again. everything was working fine until August 1,  when he left for law school, when I disconnected from his router and plugged ehernet cable into PC iI started getting error messages on startup about zlclient( which I think is ZA.) For a few days I could go back to restore points and get online but eventually I couldn't connect to internet.

I called Dell support and we tried some fixes to no avail so we reinstalled O.S.

I encountered same problem as before except now I had problems with Norton System Works 2003 and ZA wouldn't hold alert stops that I had checked., it would reask about access for each program/application .

When I tried to use live update I got error message that  update had determined that I was running a beta version. Also, when I attempted a virus detection scan under securiry options, I got a message that couldn't do scan because activex and scriting not enabled with IE 5 and above. I called Norton and they assured me that there was a problem with I.E and he gave me Microsoft document # 318378 - how to reinstall IE, he installed a scripting host program but that didn't fix. I tried this and tried first couple steps but then wasn't sure what to do.

3 days ago a new wifi broadband was setup at my apartment conplex. I got a USB wireless adapter and was able to use cable and wireless by unplugging USB adapter/ethernet cable. These worked ok with the same problems that I cited above.

I had numerous open ports after a test so reinstalled ZA and had same problem so I reinstalled O.S yesterday and everything was fine until I added ZA. I had created a restore point prior to installation and sure enough the above mentioned problems reappeared so I went back to restore point that I just made. After this the Earthlink application went bonkers - kept getting a windows installer message that would just go in a loop. I wasn't trying to install anything. This also removed my shortcut for Earthlink and I couldn't connect so I called their tech support. We could find E.L program in all program list but it wouldn't populate to list for removing programs. Tech helped me get rid of all E.L- we had to edit registry to get everything out. I then went back to a restore point I made before adding Z.A. Then we were able to reinstall E.L and establish connection. Now the main problem that I have is the active x/scripting and I get error message on many sites that there is a problem with displaying page. I click Ok and am able to proceed and I have no firewall. I'm scared to do anything without one but am now sure that ZA wreaks havoc on my system.

So, I have a couple questions:

How can I fix the problem with activex/scripting and problem displaying pages?

Ther's no way I'm gonna put ZA back on here and I was looking for some advice about a good firewall that is cheap and easy to us or another decent freebie, I'm more than willing to buy something to fix this problem. I'll be using wifi once they work out glitches and was wondering if a wireless router would act as a harware firewall? If so would I still need a sofware firewall?

I apologize for the length of this post but wanted to attempt to describe this as clearly and completely as possible.

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions about any/all the isssues I mentioned.

Thanks so much, again sorry for the length of post and hope it's clear. I still don't know much but I've learned a lot from the folks here.