Firewall/Antivirus Software

[RoyalW]

Similar to the subject I might just jump in here and let XP users know something.
XP's built in firewall isnt the best to rely on either because it only blocks incomming. Not outgoing.
The point of not letting outgoing traffic... out, is that if you have an undetected trojan/virus on your PC, you can block it from trying to communicate to the outside world, protecting your friends and everyone else.
It be best to disable this firewall and download another. (ZoneAlarm is a good one)

 

[Apokalipse]

A firewall will only alert you to an outgoing connection.
if a virus/trojan tries to make such a connection you have already been infected. a good antivirus is there to prevent the infection in the first place.

actually the main purpose of a firewall is to block people coming IN to your computer
I use Zone-Alarm and so far has blocked over 120,000 hackers in about 5 months!!

 

[ekÆsine]

okay just the thought of it blocking 120,000 hackers is a bit strange. it is def not blocking that many hackers, most of the attempts are coming from the same source. otherwise you must have a lots of cool suff on your computer people want to get at

 

[neversleeps]

sry to burst ur bubble but it wasnt 120000 hackers that it blocked. i have zonealarm as well and since oct 4 since i reformatted its blocked 137765 majority of those are harmless unsolicited IMCP echo request pings. id put money on that at least 118000 of ur 120000 are just blocked pings. they come from all over including ur ISP so many in face u can literally sit there and watch the counter go up. look again the number beneath ur 120000 is the high rated alerts. out of my 137765 only 379 have been high rated(port scans and such to my machine) and only 10 have been actual access attempts. look again. check the log it records every single thing it blocks. guarantee almost all of those are just pings