Personal Firewall Tutorial

There are several basic reasons why you need a Personal Firewall. Whether you are using your computer in an office environment where you are on a network, your computer is at home connected to the Internet, or you travel with your laptop frequently, Personal Firewall can suit your needs for all three cases.

In the first example; using your computer in an office environment where you are on a network. You would need a firewall in this case to protect your computer from internal attacks from other computers on the same company network.

The second example, using your computer at home when connected to the Internet. When connected to any type of network (internal in an office type environment or external to the Internet) your computer is subject to possible attacks. Using Personal Firewall at home when connected to the Internet can prevent such an attack.

In the third example, using your laptop frequently on the road. When you're on the road you may not be protected by your company's firewall. Your laptop requires the same level of protection as it does when it is at home, or at the office.

For all three examples, Personal Firewall can suit your needs. Many of the firewalls on the market today do not offer different profiles to suit customer's needs. With the Home, Office, and Road profiles in Personal Firewall, your computer is always going to be secure, no matter where you are.

You can find Personal Firewall at http://www.privacyware.com. With the ability to have different protection profiles, Personal Firewall offers complete firewall security for the computer actually connected to the Internet, but may be better suited for a stand-alone installation as they don't actually provide Internet connectivity, they simply secure an existing connection.

How do you know your Personal Firewall is performing the way it should be? To find out you will want to visit a firewall-testing site. The most popular site out on the Internet of its kind is http://www.grc.com. This site can perform numerous tests on your firewall to see if it is giving the best security possible. The ports that the site will test are the following:

21 (FTP)
23 (Telnet)
80 (Web Server)
110 (POP3 - e-mail server)
25 (SMTP - e-mail Server)
79 (Finger)
113 (IDENT)
139 (NETBIOS)
143 (IMAP - e-mail Server)
443 (HTTPS - Secure Web Server)

The best response a firewall can give on this type of a test is a "stealth" response. This is basically saying that the port never existed on your computer. If all ports come back as stealth your computer is virtually hidden on the Internet. Most software firewalls will report back full stealth protection after the software has been installed the first time. With this feature, even the most inexperienced web-surfer can enjoy the Internet with complete confidence and security.

Many different firewalls on the market cannot offer instant protection like Personal Firewall. These firewalls require configuration to raise the level of security that the software offers and could be difficult for non-technical computer users who require the security that the software promises. Many customers may not know they are not fully protected at this point.

After finalizing the installation of Personal Firewall, your computer is fully protected and nearly invisible from any outside intruders. This feature gives you a sense of protection that was not there before.

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