Protection for your computer

A firewall is a piece of hardware and/or software that "sits" between your computer and the Internet in order to filter the traffic going back and forth. It acts, as a security checkpoint so that unauthorized data transfer doesn't occur. If this kind of transfer does take place, it could allow a black-hat hacker or a script kiddy to gain remote access to your computer or let a Trojan horse (see Anti-Trojan) exploit your computer.

Industry opinion of the Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP is not particularly favourable and free software, such as Zone Alarm from http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp, is to be preferred. You can also purchase good firewall programs from Norton, McAfee and other utility vendors. Windows 95, 98, 98SE and ME do not come with a bundled firewall and to protect your computer you need to add one.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), currently a Release Candidate in Beta testing, includes significant enhancements to the Windows Firewall component, previously known as the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF). Windows Firewall is a stateful host-based firewall that discards unsolicited incoming traffic, providing a level of protection for computers against malicious users or programs. To provide better protection for computers connected to any kind of network (such as the Internet, a home network, or an organization network), Windows XP SP2 enables Windows Firewall on all network connections by default. This new behavior can impair some types of communications. Note, too, that Windows Firewall requires Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003 Server. It is not available for the Windows 9x series.