A few of my friends on computers told me to check my computer security on a site run by some TV PC guy. It's at this site

here

It's free software called shields up and when I first went there they only tested computers and I failed.

I went to ZoneLabs.com and they have free software called ZoneAlarm which I now use.

Since then they now offer software free at shields up and I don't know which would be better or which I should use

I now pass the previous test and am invisible. Still the ZoneAlarm in the past week has stopped over 2000 attempts from the outside to connect with my PC. This is the first time I have had a decent firewall.

I'm still a novice so could I be doing this better?. If I can let me know, If not I hope you all find this usefull at protecting yourselves.:flame:

Just aman

I've also got ZoneAlarm - an excellent little app

 

The only thing I can suggest is to play with the levels of protection - have it set at medium at least (I think this also means that your PC will be invisible to the outside world when you're online - that should cut down drastically on the number of attempts on your PC) but don't customise unless you have to.

pc software based firewalls are very poor. your best bet it to setup a middleman computer as a proxy server and firewall or buy a router with a built in firewall

I'm not so sure - ZoneAlarm comes top of the list in just about every firewall review. If you put it into "Stealth mode" then no one will actually be able to see your PC to attack it. It also won't allow any outgoing traffic unless you give it your okay. It's ideal imho for any 1 PC household (as it's FREE!).

 

The only loophole I can see is user error (that old chesnut) i.e. allowing something naughty to access the internet or act as a server.

 

Originally posted by Kettle

I'm not so sure - ZoneAlarm comes top of the list in just about every firewall review.

 

Because your prolly reading desktop firewall reviews. Think dell or microsoft use zonealarm on their servers? I doubt it. If you want true security desktop firewalls are not the way to go.

As a server admin, I don't use ZoneAlarm either I'm just recommending it for the average 1 PC household. A physical firewall for 1 PC would be overkill imho.

Interesting that you cited M$ as an example for internet security considering the number of times they've been hacked

Thanks for your help. I am a 1 PC house and am just doing the best I can on SSDI so it has to be free. I got Norton for my anti-virus but it expired and I haven't re-upped for this year for all its updates. Instead I got free AVG anti-virus. It's slow but gets free updates and I use it once a week. Is there something better you might recommend?

Just aman

dang he beat me to it....

right, you would be best off not following dell and M$ as examples of security devices;)

 

and as kettle said, as a recently former network admin, zonealarm is no good because you have so many different options that are much better, but for the 1-2 pc household it should work perfectly;)

As has been stated, software firewalls suck! Thing about it. If your software firewall detects an attempted break-in then someone is already at the outer boundaries of your machine. Go buy a Linksys or SMC firewall router (assuming you have cable/dsl) for like $100. It's cheap and offers much better protection. Also, should you ever decide to add more computers to your househould you can do so without having to add another cable/dsl line. Should you ever want to run your own mail or web server you can also do port redirection which is a security plus.

Not all software firewalls suck. IPTables is pretty damn hardy ...

aman said in post #1 :

A few of my friends on computers told me to check my computer security on a site run by some TV PC guy. It's at this site

here

Hi,

 

GRC.com is run by a man called Steve Gibson, and once you learn a little about the man's ego you wouldn't be surprised to hear GRC actually stands for "Gibson Research Corporation".

 

His "Shields UP!!" product is basically just a web-based, vanilla port-scanner. Note the two exclamation marks. They are important for a few reasons, number one being that it helps to instil a sense of fear in whomever is using his tool. Possibly to help sales of his own "BlackICE Defender" software firewall.

 

After just running "Shields UP!!" on my own machine, I'm just a little surprised at what it is telling me. Some of it is inaccurate, and some just plain lies. For example, he seems to think it's dangerous my machine has an IP address: -

 

The concern is that any web site can easily retrieve this unique "machine name" (just as we have) whenever you visit. It may be used to uniquely identify you on the Internet. In that way it's like a "supercookie" over which you have no control. You can not disable, delete, or change it.

You see? That is just stupid. Someone should explain to him how TCP/IP works.

 

So in short, ignore Gibson and go with ZoneAlarm. That will be fine for most.

ROFL @ Gibson!

Is he the one responsible for the 'YOUR COMPUTER IS BROADCASTING AN IP!' popups?

No, but that's what he's saying.

Just a word of warning,once you have ZA don't try to uninstall it as you could have major probs as many have.

What sort of problems have you had?

I haven't had any problems, neither has anyone I know.

ZA KICKS SOME MAJOR ASS!!

 

except for those so-called FW-killers that seek out and kill process according to their name, then all you gotta to is rename the ZA executables and hex-edit the dlls to match!!!

then KA-ZAM!!! bye bye Firewall-Killerz!

Or just use a better product.

what, like blackice? he he

Ewwwwwwwww no

 

:vomit:

<i>steven hawking is full of crap</i>

 

is it just me or is there a general dislike for hawking in this place?

why do you guys hate him so much anyway?

I don't hate him, nor do I dislike him.

yeah, RE is the one who said that in the first place

for some reason

 

where'd Rad Ed run off to anyway?