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It probably won’t be long into your broadband life when you hear people talking about firewalls. If the people at the PC store won’t try to sell you one, your ISP probably will. Then there’s all the different antivirus software that offers built-in ‘firewall’ support. But what actually is a firewall and do you really need one, or is just sales hype?
At its simplest, a firewall is a tool for protecting your home network from hackers or people otherwise wishing to break in to your computer. The danger of hacking is one most people are aware of, but the level of attacks can vary from mild to very dangerous. There are some cases where the hacker might steal your passwords or even your financial information and sell it on to a third party. Despite the media hype, this sort of thing is quite rare, but that’s no reason not to protect yourself.
The term “firewall” comes from the original idea – a wall, usually between houses used to stop fire spreading. In the same sense, a digital firewall stops the destruction caused by hackers from reaching your own personal property. There are many ways people can enter your computer, from bugs in the operating system to spam viruses, remote login and many more. A firewall can’t protect against everything, but it can make it much harder to be attacked.
So, anyone using the internet should have a firewall installed for safety. But what type should you use? Hardware firewalls are quite common and most modern routers have some form of firewall, although the quality can vary. Although they tend to be more efficient than using software, they only look at incoming data, so can be ineffectual in some cases.
Software firewalls usually take more setting up but are also more customisable, so you can set a level of protection that suits your computer usage with relative ease. Software firewalls also look at both incoming and outgoing data. There’s no reason you can’t use both a software and hardware firewall for maximum protection, although you’ll need to make sure these are configured properly.
Because a firewall isn’t an all in one solution and usually quite ineffective against viruses, using an all-in-one style internet security package such as that provided by companies like Zonealarm can provide a cheap and effective way of combining everything you need to be safe on the internet in one package. Another advantage of this is that you use less system resources running a multitude of different programs that all achieve the same thing.
Whatever software you choose though, it is crucial you update your software as regularly as possible to avoid being caught out by the latest exploits.
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