very n00bish question

JackKelly

ok, just got broadband from IOL and i was wondering; I noticed that to surf normally, you firstly have connect like you used to back with 56k with a dial up. Now should i only ever connect once, and then leave the BB on for ever more,? or should i disconnect the BB at night, or when not in use? and then "dial up" (instantaneously) when i want it.I have a "block all traffic" on my firewall, but some stuff still manages to get through slowly eating my limit.

tomk

Well, I leave mine connected permanently - and nothing gets through my firewall. Are we talking about a software firewall here e.g. ZoneAlarm, Kerio, etc? Can it identify what's getting through, or do you just know it's there beause your bandwidth is being used?

If your main concern is security, disconnect whenever you're not using it. If you're worried about your bandwidth being used up, get a getter firewall, or try and identify what's getting through your current one.

paddyk

Just like TimAy I am new to broadband. Talking about firewall and security I am running norton anti virus and windows xp firewall. Is this enough or can anyone suggest a good firewall compatible with iolbb and windows xp.
Thanks.

HelterSkelter

Originally posted by paddyk
Just like TimAy I am new to broadband. Talking about firewall and security I am running norton anti virus and windows xp firewall. Is this enough or can anyone suggest a good firewall compatible with iolbb and windows xp.
Thanks.

I use Zone Alarm with IOLBB and find it great. And best of all, it's free!!

Squall

ok, just got broadband from IOL and i was wondering; I noticed that to surf normally, you firstly have connect like you used to back with 56k with a dial up.

If your using a USB modem then youll have to dial up every time you start up the machine. If its ethernet with its own power source then once should be enough (given no power loss or anything).

carbsy

Originally posted by paddyk
Just like TimAy I am new to broadband. Talking about firewall and security I am running norton anti virus and windows xp firewall. Is this enough or can anyone suggest a good firewall compatible with iolbb and windows xp.
Thanks.

Hi Paddy and welcome to the board.I recommend downloading Kerio Personal Firewall which is free for personal use and beats the pants off most/all of the more expensive software firewalls out there.You can download it here

Squall

Slightly off topic but im using a hardware firewall and just wondered if I should use a software aswell? Or would it be overkill?

carbsy

Originally posted by Squall
Slightly off topic but im using a hardware firewall and just wondered if I should use a software aswell? Or would it be overkill?

The only advantage of using a software firewall in your situation Squall, would be to stop rouge applications "phoning home" so to speak as they offer application based filtering options.

paddyk

Many thanks for the replies. I felt a bit of a fool asking but the quick answers were great. Hope to see u all around. Thanks Timay I have your problem also but hopefully now I am sorted
Paddy.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Squall
Slightly off topic but im using a hardware firewall and just wondered if I should use a software aswell? Or would it be overkill?

As Carbsy said, a software firewall runs on your machine, so it is able to tell what applications are making outbound connections. If you have it set up to display warnings when unknown applications make outbound attempts, and the virus doesn't hijack some other application to do it's work, then you might catch a virus this way with a software firewall. But most people find all those alerts confusing, and end up disabling the alerts, at which point you aren't getting any benefit, because the hardware firewall is (or should be) already blocking inbound attempts.

neokenzo

I was thinking about this:

I have a router, antivirus, ad-ware and trojan guard on my machine. Presumebly I do regular check ups, I would probably not require and firewall do I?
The router would block all unauthorised incoming bandwith.
I use Norton Antivirus, and we all know Norton, anything slightly off and it will alert me.
Ad-Ware to delete any spyware.
Trojan to detect and delete any possible trojan.
So whats the use of having software firewall?

dub45

Originally posted by paddyk
Many thanks for the replies. I felt a bit of a fool asking but the quick answers were great. Hope to see u all around. Thanks Timay I have your problem also but hopefully now I am sorted
Paddy.

As the wise man one said the only foolish question is the one not asked!!! Theres loads of very helpful people on boards ask away its the only way we learn

tomk

Originally posted by neokenzo
The router would block all unauthorised incoming bandwith.
<snip>
So whats the use of having software firewall?

If your router is blocking incoming connections, then it is effectively acting as a firewall. If you're AV, spyware, and trojan apps are working properly, and you are 100% satisfied that nothing will get to your machine, then I'd say you don't need a software firewall. Many people install one anyway - the "belt and braces" approach, if you like.

bk

Originally posted by neokenzo
I was thinking about this:

I have a router, antivirus, ad-ware and trojan guard on my machine. Presumebly I do regular check ups, I would probably not require and firewall do I?

Strictly speaking if you have a firewall on your router then you won't need a software firewall.

But then I use both and so do many people. It is all about layers of security. If the firewall on your router is badly configured or if a compromise for your particular router is released, then an attack might still slip by your router. But then I have an extra layer of security with a software firewall (zonealarm on windows, IPTables on Linux) that they have to try to break then, two levels of security like this is usually way beyond the compabilities of an attack to break.

Another benefit of a software firewall is that it also controls the outbound communications of applications. Therefore if you get infected by a trojan or virus it will more then likely not be able to communicate outside your PC, which is very good.

Anyway zonealarm basic is free, so why wouldn't you use it?

BTW For those of you who don't know, just having Anti-Virus software isn't enough to protect you against a virus.

-First of all a you must keep you AV software uptodate with virus definitions (if you have BB, you should be able to automate it so that your virus definitions are updated as soon as a new virus definition is released).

- And second they won't protect you from Zero-day exploits. Remember new virus spread extremely fast, they can infect millions of PC's in just a few hours and way before the AV companies release a new virus definition for it. So even people with uptodate AV softare can still get infected.

So remember, never open attachments from people you don't know and be wary of attachments from people you do know (a virus may have infected your friends PC and may then send itself to everyone in your friends contact book, including you and will make itself look like your friend!!). Also virus are recently starting to spread by P2P applications. All very clever stuff.

You could help reduce your exposure to attacks by not using MS Outlook Express/Outlook and Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird are very good alternatives.