yepper, black ice is an firewall program, works well but the interface is much more difficult to read than zone alarm. I have black ice in a drawer, am running zonealarm. The performance hit for a firewall program is no biggie, much better to have your IP address hidden while you are on line. I find AH much more enjoyable when channel 1 is squelched. I only unsquelch to congrat someone for a good fight, otherwise the bull*&*$ you hear gets old fast.