Computer Corner

Last time we talked about whether you are gambling online. We talked about the necessity of having the following programs running on your computer:

A firewall
An anti-virus program
Anti-spyware scanner(s)

This article will concentrate on your firewall. A firewall acts as a wall or barrier between your computer and the Internet. The firewall checks suspicious incoming “traffic” to your computer. It also can stop malicious programs that are already on your computer from connecting to the Internet.

Both Windows XP and Vista come with a built in firewall. You can find the settings for these by going to Start >> Control Panel >> Windows Firewall. (You may also find these settings via the Security icon.) But the Windows firewall for XP only filters inbound Internet traffic, meaning if the bad guys somehow slipped past your firewall they could start “phoning home” with your personal data. The XP firewall was a “one-way” firewall.

Things have improved with Vista’s “two-way” firewall, but not much. No real way exists to configure outbound filtering. To stop the bad guys from making outbound connections, you'd have to know all those details of all the thousands of pieces of malware that exist out there.

A free firewall exists called Zone Alarm ® that is a better solution. You can download this popular firewall at www.zonealarm.com. But you’ll have to search for this freebie. Click on the Home & Home Office link, then click on the Zone Alarm link. This author has found Zone Alarm both easy to install & configure and easy to use.

Other pay for firewalls exist, such as Norton’s Internet Security ($54.99) or McAfee Internet Security Suite (price varies). These packages also include anti-virus programs and spyware & spam blockers (topics for future articles here).

None of these products are perfect. They all have “leaks.” But if you are not running a firewall at all you are a sitting duck on the Internet for the bad guys. And you may not even know they have broken into your computer until it is too late.

Next time we’ll talk about why you need a good anti-virus program, and why you should only run one of these, and only one.