How To Set Up Personal Firewall?

Question Of The Week

How To Set Up Personal Firewall?

A personal firewall is a module which monitors communications to and from a computer and permits/denies them based on a security policy. You would have already seen Windows Firewall in your PC's Control Panel. A personal firewall differs from a conventional firewall in terms of scale only. Personal firewalls are typically designed by users themselves. Personal Firewall alerts you about every outgoing/incoming connection attempts.

A typical example is the one offered by Eset Smart Security. An outgoing connection attempt is usually made by locally installed software (including Windows). Eset Smart Security will give you two options; 1.Allow, 2.Deny, either temporarily or permanently. If some unknown/new application (Spyware) makes such an attempt you can easily block it. An incoming connection is whenever a remote computer is attempting to communicate with your PC. It may be a well known server or a hacker. Just apply the above mentioned options. Please note that some applications like uTorrent, Firefox, Skype etc., will be making both incoming and outgoing communications.

To get such alerts and modify them yourself, you have to set Eset Smart Security in "Interactive Mode" (Set Up -> Advanced Set Up -> Personal firewall). Also note that whenever Eset Smart Security gives such alerts, it will give you a suggestion by projecting the alert in Red for NO, and in Green for YES. If you find it troublesome, go for "Automatic Mode with Exceptions". 

Personal firewall protection is especially useful for users with "Always On" connections such as DSL or Cable modem. Such connections use a static IP address that makes them especially vulnerable to potential hackers. Personal Firewall can hide your computer from port scans by not responding to unsolicited network traffic (Read about Angry IP Scanner, but don't try it because Port Binding is provided by every ISP nowadays).

The final touch is Personal firewall is not infallible because sometimes viruses can manipulate the firewall. When both are running on the same system, it may be possible to bypass or even completely shut down the firewall !!

Eset Smart Security

Program Of The Week

Eset Smart Security

This is an antivirus program rated among the top five in business. Believe me, I have tried Norton, Kaspersky, ZoneAlarm, AVG and Avast. Those who have experienced, will surely agree with me that Eset Smart Security is a beauty.

It has three components of protection: 1.Antivirus, 2.Personal Firewall, 3.Antispam module. If you visit Downloads section of Eset, along with Eset Smart Security you will find one Eset Antivirus, which contains only the first component above mentioned. Obviously, it is inferior to Eset Smart Security because it lacks Personal Firewall which is very essential to monitor every communication to and from your PC when the internet is on. The third component is only necessary for those who use something like Outlook Express to receive emails into their PC but not for those who use webmails (Yahoo, Gmail etc.,).

Whenever you try to visit dangerous websites which are already marked by Eset, it gives you a red alert in your browser and prevents you from visiting that site. There is also a special feature called Threat Sense which when enabled submits suspicious files to Eset lab and gets feedback.

The most important reason why I like Eset Smart Security is... when you start the computer, this antivirus program takes only a few seconds before allowing other programs to start functioning. There are some other antivirus programs which will make you go for a tea-break after switching on the computer because they take quite a few minutes. And don't forget that Eset Smart Security is quite efficient in its job.

Quillpad

Website Of The Week

Quillpad.in

If you are an Indian, and if you want to express your thoughts (while using internet) in your own mother tongue, you can use this fantastic website. It gives you a choice of ten indian languages including all 4 south indian. You just have to choose the language and then start typing in the box provided. Very useful one.