FREE
PERSONAL FIREWALLS
Background - I
was asked to draft some basic advice for our corporate employees to use
at home. Legally I can't say - get AVG/ZA and ADaware so I've tried to
do it as comparisons. These haven't been approved yet and I'm open to
suggestions on how to improve them. They are pitched at a very low
level of IT awareness.
Personal Firewall
Comparison
Connecting to the Internet without a firewall is like leaving the keys
in your car with the engine running and the doors unlocked while you
run into the shops. Although you may be able to get in and out before
anyone notices, someone may take advantage of the opportunity. On the
Internet, hackers use malicious code—such as viruses, worms, and Trojan
horses—to try to find unprotected computers. A firewall can help
protect your computer against these and other security attacks.
What can these hackers do? Often these attacks will try to install
programs on your computer that you do not want. These will usually
cause lots of pop up windows to appear on your screen every time you go
online. These pop up can sometimes contain pictures and text that are
offensive. Other programs can redirect you to sites you don’t want to
visit. More seriously these programs can monitor everything you type
into your pc and send it back to the hackers who will look for bank
details and credit card numbers you might enter when shopping or
banking online.
What can you do to stop this? You can install one of the many
personal firewalls that are available to download on the internet or if
you have a recent version of Windows XP you can use the built in basic
firewall.
A firewall won’t protect you from everything online but it’s a big
help. Here are some of the more popular free to use firewalls available
on the web:
Windows XP firewall
The firewall within Windows XP is freely available to all XP
users. It is part of the Service Pack 2 update (SP2). Older computers
with XP may not have this installed but new machines will have this
available straight away. The XP firewall needs to be switched on before
it will work by going to the Windows Security Centre within the Control
Panel.
The Windows Firewall is very basic and only works against attacks
from outside. It will not alert you if a worm or Trojan has entered
your machine in another way and is trying to get out. The XP firewall
has some other known problems that make it not as secure as some other
free firewalls. It is best used on a new machine just until you are
able to download and install another firewall.
If you don’t have SP2 installed it is available with all other updates
from Microsoft Update.
Zone Labs - ZoneAlarm Free Version
ZoneAlarm is one of the most popular personal firewalls. Zone Labs
produce a free version of ZoneAlarm for home users. This is a cut down
version of the full product which you have to pay for. The free version
is a basic firewall which will monitor all of the programs which try to
enter and exit from your machine. To start with it can pop up a lot of
message windows which ask you to allow or deny access to a program.
These can be quite annoying and confusing to start with but quickly die
down. New software will often make new messages pop up as will a virus
or Trojan which is trying to escape from you machine. The ZoneAlarm pop
ups can alert you to problems on your machine letting you fix the
problem before it can steal any of your important information.
ZoneAlarm can be a little annoying and will put up little nag
messages to try to encourage you to buy the full version of the
software. If you can tolerate some of its little quirks the Free
ZoneAlarm firewall is a very good piece of software.
Website - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
Sunbelt – Kerio free personal firewall
Kerio is another popular free firewall. It is very similar in features
to ZoneAlarm.
Like ZoneAlarm the free version of Kerio is a cut down version of a
full product which you have to pay to use. Unlike ZoneAlarm you
download the full version of Kerio on a 30 day trial which will then
revert to the basic free version after the trial period. Kerio will
control programs entering and exiting from your computer. It will also
produce many pop up messages to start with when you will have to choose
to allow or deny access. Like ZoneAlarm it will occasionally nag you to
buy the full version of the product but is still a good firewall in the
basic free version.
Website - http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm
Comodo free personal firewall
Comodo unlike the other 2 firewalls is not a cut down version but
is a free product made by a security company. It has similar
functionality to the other firewalls and will also produce the program
pop up messages to start with. This firewall does not have nag messages
because there is no pay-for version.
Comodo is a well regarded and well featured free firewall.
Website - http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
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Original Tutorial
by Aspman
for TheTAZZone-TAZForum
Originally posted on August 30th, 2006 here
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