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If you are viewing this from work then the chances are
you are viewing this through a firewall. The firewall
is often used by companies to limit the sites you  are
allowed to see and what you can do.
If you have a broadband Internet connection at home
(either a DSL connection or a cable modem), you may have
heard of firewalls from your ISP.
The simple rule is if you use the internet you shoudl
have a firewall to stop hackers and spammers from gaining
access to your computer.
OK so now I know I need one but what is it? - Basically,
a firewall is a barrier/wall to keep malicious people
and away from your computer. It does two jobs.
- prevents attackers from seeing your computer on the
internet
- prevents unauthorised access to your computer
There are two types of firewalls - firstly hardware firewalls
which are usually part of a router. Secondly, there are
software firewalls such as Norton Personal Firewall.
Norton Internet Security, for example does 5 jobs to
keep your provacy and computer safe from attack. These
are
- Intrusion Detection - scans eveything that is sent
to and sent from your pc to check that it is not an
attack. If it sees an attack it will block it
- Privacy Control - controls the amount of information
you send to websites you are looking at. Be aware that
many websites will not work properly with this enabled.
- Ad blocking - The ide behind this is that it stops
banner ads and marketing material from being displayed.
In all honesty is a real pain as it is very over zealous
as to what it considers to be an advert and blocks large
chunks of websites from being desplayed. In extreme
cases you will just see a blank page
- Spam Alert - Helps reduce the amount of spam you get.
It can be a bit over enthusastic specially with free
email addresses but keep an eye on it for the first
few weeks and then it should be good.
- Parental control - if you have kids and they use the
internet then this is great to stop them looking at
adult or violent content. It doesn't replace supervision
but it can certainly help.
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