Help!

[Allen Schoessler]

I recently purchased a network for my two computers and now I have a problem. I set both my hard drive and the other computer's to Full Access Sharing. I have it this way because I would like to have full access to the other computer from the other. But then yesterday, some dude installed a worm program onto my computer over the Internet, so now my access is set to Read Only. The worm is gone, but I would still like full access to the other computer without getting worms every time I get on the Internet. Will a firewall solve my problem? If so, could someone give a quick definition of what all a firewall does? (I have only a hazy clue of what a firewall is).

Thanks....

[parksie]

A firewall will not protect you against worms. A virus checker might, if you keep it updated. On my system I got round this problem by killing the Windows Scripting Host. I don't need it anyway, and VBScript should be limited to HTML pages.

However, what a firewall will help protect you against is people getting onto your computer when you're on the internet. What sort of connection are you using?

For more information see http://grc.com

[Allen Schoessler]

I'm using a dial-up connection.

I didn't think that the firewall would protect me against worms, I just wanted it so that people couldn't put worms on my computer because of the network. Thus if they can't get access to the computer, they can't put a worm. Sounds like a firewall is what I need.... What firewalls are out there and what might be a good one? I found one at http://www.zonealarm.com/ - has anyone heard of that one before?

[Active]

Two Computers Can be Connected through a Network
to Exchange Certain Services through What are called
as Network Ports.

Common Examples are the http port , Port 80
The Smtp Port 110 ,POP port 25 , telnet port 23...

_{To Find out Which Service/Software uses a Particular Port :
http://www.snort.org/Database/portsearch.asp}

Now a Firewall Can Limit the Usage of these Ports.
For Example a Firewall can close all ports while opening
only the http port...so that you can surf WWW but
cannot send email or receive emails. And Only selected
programs like your browser are allowed to use this port.
Any Phone home Program Which tries to send back data
to it's creators will not be allowed access.

[parksie]

Originally posted by Allen Schoessler
Sounds like a firewall is what I need.... What firewalls are out there and what might be a good one? I found one at http://www.zonealarm.com/ - has anyone heard of that one before?

The GRC site has good info on firewalls, but the one I use is AtGuard. It's actually commercial software but they accidentally released a full version on their website and I was one of the ones that got a copy It's a bit techy and as such is a bit unsuited to normal humans
If you really want to try your hand it's at www.parksie.net/build11.zip Good features are ad blocking, cookie blocking, custom http-referrer information. It also has interactive firewall rule generation based on catching connections and asking you if you want to let it through.

ZoneAlarm is supposed to be pretty good too, and a lot more friendly but less powerful.