Firewall Software
Zone Alarm
Sygate
Choose from the available links below:
- Configure Zone Alarm
- Control Center
1. Configure Zone Alarm
After installing and rebooting your system, you will notice a pop up window appear and 99% of the time, it will alert you that it has detected a network.
Nothing to worry about - Zone Alarm has just found out your online, that's all.If you are on a home/office/university network, select Trusted Zone. Otherwise, select Internet Zone.
The difference between Trusted Zone and Internet Zone is that NetBIOS traffic is blocked in the Internet Zone. NetBIOS is used by Windows to access file sharing and shared printers etc. so if you need to access this stuff, put it in the Trusted Zone and click OK.
2. Control Center
You can configure Zone Alarm via the Control Center. The firewall has a multitude of non-firewall features such as pop-up blocking, Internet Cache cleaning, email attachment quarantine facility among others. These may not be necessary but you can toggle between on/off as you wish later on.
The main section we wil look at is Program Control. You can access this via the left panel in the Control Center. Click Programs where you can modify access permissions for various programs on your system.
IMPORTANT!!
Unless you really want to deprive yourself from Email, Web Browsing or using the Operating System itself, do NOT block any of these programs:
- msimn.exe (Outlook Express)
- iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer)
- The filename of your connection software
- explorer.exe (Windows Graphical User Interface)
As long as you are able to access webpages, you can always Google the programs that Zone Alarm is questioning you about if you are doubtful.
Zone Alarm also features the Internet Lock. This is full denial of any communication whatsoever and should only be used if you suspect you are being h4x0r3d.
You may notice that I didn't go into very much detail re: Zone Alarm. This is mainly as all firewall software is essentially the same - they all monitor inbound/outbound net traffic for suspicious activity.
Sygate isn't that much different from Zone Alarm really. The only main differences is that the pretty graphical interface is lost and we have a barebones firewall to suit our needs. Let's get stuck in then...
Run the Sygate Firewall via the Start menu of Windows and click onto the Applications menu. You will now see the Application List.
There will be four columns:
- File Name - Find the program you are attempting to use
- Version - Version of the software
- Access - The choices are Block, Ask and Allow
- Path - The directory of the program
If the program you are attempting to use is blocking, unblock it. It really is that simple.
|
