firewalling

[seven]

what's a good firewall to install? one that doesn't mess up your connections?

[Kaiser]

You could use Zone Alarm its a good free firewall, I use it.

Although it sometimes clogs up, that doesnt really do anything bad since youll only have to reload the firewall, takes 10 seconds.

[StickyPeas]

erm.... wats a firewall??!?!?!?
:confused:

[Kaiser]

The thing that prevents other ppl from hacking into your PC.

[StickyPeas]

do i need it?
:confused:

[AbuMubarak]

kohr-ah,

you seem to know more about computers than i

i have zonealarm (they just sent me an update), i thought that with firewalls, your ip's are invisible

but mine shows up, is that correct?

[Kaiser]

Well it does show the ip of the firewall, as ive heard but I dont know much about the firewall thing.

[sajid]

Salams

i use Norton Firewall 2002 i think its a pretty good one........Its costly but im sure u can pick one original up for bout £10 over Ebay tahts where i got mine from

ws
sajid

[seven]

i've installed Norton Firewall 2002 ...had 2 attempted hacks already!! :eek:

[Kaiser]

Nah, just because it says it blocked access doesnt really mean you were trying to be hacked, When im gameing online then I sometimes get over 200 alerts in less then a hour.
But then again battle.net servers are the safest in the world

[Noor]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[StickyPeas]

last time sum1 told me to put a firewall up i ended up gettin really confused (as usual) and installing cyberpatrol lol! and with that i cudnt even go onto normal sites like yahoo mail!!! i cudnt find the uninstall thingy so i ended up deleting sum of the dll's associated with it... that totally mucked up the system or wateva and i wasnt able to use net... only connect and browze round on aol! for 2 whole weeks!!!!!!!
i asked sum ppl for help ~ahem~ (not mentioning any names) but they were as clueless as eva... and even more clueless than me!
I eventually fixed it!!!!!
:D
no thanx to ..... (not mentioning names)

:D

[Noor]

go be dangerous sticky , name 'em and shame 'em!!

[seven]

werent me :D

[haideriam]

perhaps one could tell us how to install a firewall

what it does

and what it does not do

that way the different firewalls can be compared

[seven]

firewalls protect your computer from being hacked. some firewalls are safer than others.

[StickyPeas]

Originally posted by seven
werent me :D

yeh seven-this time ur conscious is clear
:P

[obsidian]

Salam Alaikum

I would recommend Norton Personal Firewall ( I use it)

There is also Checkpoint Firewall 1 which I use professionally
but thats v expensive + its israeli :(

WS

O

[AbuMubarak]

there is a study (i have the link at home) and zonealarm is better than all of the bought ones because it actually protects against this or that invasion

i was willing to buy one, but the article stated that zonealarm was the best (plus it was free) its critical to have if you are dsl or cable or t1, dialup isnt that affected

my unexpert opinion

[obsidian]

I have actually heard good things about ZA, but I'm always a
little sceptical about free software - especially if the source
code isn't freely available.

So its really a question of budget, mines pretty modest :(

In my case Norton has managed to detect several attempts
at scanning free ports on my system so it least it appears to work.

You can check the affectiveness of your firewall by visiting

wwww.hackerwhacker.com

but in my opinion the best solution if your on cable/adsl/t1 etc
is to power down the box at night...

Better to be safe than sorry ;)

O

[Kaiser]

Of course, I turn the PC off at night no point in wasting electricity.

[Outsider's]

I've been a happy user of Zonealarm's free version for several months. The free version is even said to be more reliable than the pro version. There's plenty of additional information on firewalls on PC Guide's discussion forum: http://www.pcguide.com/vb/

[haideriam]

installed free zone alarm and happy with it so far, 4 browses caught within 1 hour

people can be sick, i know could be innocent browses too, but all these viruses etc, and not that my computer has things of hackable value

many thanks all

[haideriam]

installed free zone alarm and happy with it so far, 4 browses caught within 1 hour

people can be sick, i know could be innocent browses too, but all these viruses etc, and not that my computer has things of hackable value

many thanks all

[Consider]

Assalamo-alaikum

Ive just installed the zonealarm firewall on my computer but there are some things I am unsure of

I have zero knowledge in this area...

ok, should I allow MSN messenger? (looking at the data log, it says incoming (listen), and there are some other things I have blocked which have a destination DNS (whatever that is) with host. (number) and then the name of my ISP provider...should I block these too?..

How do you know what to allow/block?

any other advice would be appreciated

Wassalamo-alaikum

[Kaiser]

Well u can allow everything what it asks usually since it only allows acces to net for programs that are on your comp so theres no need to worry about that.

[Justicator]

The best firewall is a HARDWARE not software firewall . Simply get any consumer analog router . A hardware firewall will provide you with Network Address Translation ( only an external IP address is shown to the rest of the net not any of your internal IP addresses assigned to your machines ) . This will stop all Script Kiddies from accessing any active ports on any of your machines behind the firewall . Is it fail proof ? No . But one has to be on an expert level to perform such feats usually requiring an overlooked security aspect on the part of the person implementing the firewall to get past it externally . Most of the hits you see on any software firewall are merely scripted port scans by some wannabe hacker . Besides hiding your IP adresses the most important thing if you are worried about the integrity of your system is to not download junk off the web or open any attachments unless you have scanned them for viruses . Almost all security threats to your system are from internal sources ie you download a virus . But if you have your machine connected to the net unprotected it's rather simple to take it over . ;)