Making your computer system safe has gotten easier over the years. In the past, when the internet started to become available in most people households, it was hard for these people to try and protect their systems. The online security field was young and even the professionals at the time did not know the breadth of attacks that would happen. Now there are plenty of tools for both the professionals and the amateurs to use to be able to protect their system. One of the best tools that a person who is either can use to protect themselves is a firewall on their system. A firewall offers you unprecedented protection from the bad guys online. In the following paragraphs, we will talk about what a firewall is and we will also discuss the difference between software and a hardware firewall.

What exactly is a firewall?

There are many different types of attacks that can happen to your computer when you hook it up online. One of the earliest types of attacks is when people would try to gain access to your computer remotely. They would do this by trying to find a weak port on your system. A weak port means one that is open with no protection.  If the black hat hacker did not go in the port manually themselves, they would send in a software attack, such as a worm, to go through it. When professionals saw that this type of attack was becoming more prevalent, they started to create software that would protect the end users from it. That software was known as a firewall and it is what we use to this very day to protect our home and work networks. There are several different types of firewalls out there. Many security companies add their version of a firewall to their software protection suites. But the main thing that you should know besides the brand of a firewall is the difference between software and a hardware firewall.

What is the difference between a software and hardware firewall?

The differences are quite simple really and you can probably tell what they are just by the names. A hardware firewall is a firewall that is either on a dedicated machine just for the firewall or on the home router that you just bought. Hardware firewalls are considered the best when it comes to protecting your network and your system. If you are only going to have one of the two on your system then I would suggest a hardware firewall be active. A software firewall is one that you install on your computer system. It is also very useful and depending on which one that you install, can be very effective. With a software firewall, you may have more configuration control than a hardware firewall. The problem with a software firewall is that some attacks can get past it easier than a hardware firewall. It is easier to trick the software on a user’s machine than on a dedicated firewall machine.

If you want the best protection on your system then we suggest that you have both a hardware and a software firewall installed. That way you will have all of your ports on both the system and the network doubly protected.

Creating a secure computing environment can take some work but it needs to be done. It needs to happen so that you can make sure that you will not be affected by all of the bad guys on the internet. When you are looking for ways to make sure that your computer is safe, the first thing that you will hear is to make sure that your computer has antivirus software installed in it. They will then tell you what kind of antivirus you should have installed and then they will send you on your way. In this day and age that logic is not good enough for a person who is looking to make sure that they are safe. Having antivirus installed on your system is a good first step but it is not the only step that you need. We will take the time to tell you several other steps that you need to take to make sure that your computer is safe when it surfs the internet.

The firewall

The next thing that you should do right after you install the antivirus is to make sure that you have the firewall on your computer set up correctly. Firewall is the thing that is going to stop the intruders from having a look at your local network. If you cannot stop them then all of the secrets that you have on the computer will be exposed. So you need to make sure that your firewall is both set up on the operating system and on the router. This will mean that you have two firewalls protecting your system. One may be enough but two is even better.

The right software

After you have the antivirus and the firewall set up, now you need to take a look at the software that you use on the internet. This includes the browser, phone services such as Skype, instant messengers and any other thing that need the internet to work. You should make sure that there are no security warnings on the software. When it comes to the browser, make sure that it is one of the latest versions of the brand that you are using, especially if you are using internet explorer. If you are using Internet Explorer then there should be no version on your computer earlier than 8. The rest of them are not secure enough to be used as everyday internet devices. If you have to, you might want to think about switching browsers to one of the alternatives out there, Firefox or Chrome.

After all of this is done, you want to make sure that you add some common sense to the pot as well. A lot of the security risk that you will see on your computer will involve mistakes that you make. If you are careful and you have the right software installed then you should be safe on the internet.

If you are buying a new computer then there are many things that you will want to do with it once it is set up. These things that you would want to do are all different depending on your skill level with computers. If you are a person who is new to computers and has never owned one before, then you are probably going to try and get used to the machine as it is now before you do anything. If you are a person that has experience with owning a computer, then you are going to install some programs that you use on a regular basis and uninstall some programs that came with the operating system. But no matter, if you are a new person when it comes to computers or someone who has experience, there are certain things that you need to check for on your new Windows 7 operating system to make sure that it is going to be safe when you use it. In this article we will discuss these settings that you need to check.

The first thing that you need to look at

When you first turn on the computer, the thing you need to look at first is the default programs that are installed on it. Some of these programs are demos and they either offer limited functionality or they will expire in a week or a month. This is especially true for the security products that may come with the computer. Some people when they see that the program is already installed on the computer do not realize that it only works for a limited time and so they are not really protected long term. Make sure that you have an antivirus that is going to work for a long time installed on the system. If that means uninstalling the demo that is on there already and installing a truly free version such as AVG, then that is what you should do.

Make sure that your computer is protected from remote threats

Once you are certain that the software that came installed on your computer works or you have replaced it with a version that does work, your next step is to make sure that your computer is protected from remote threats. You do this by making sure that the firewall that came already installed into the system is running. Some people prefer to download new firewall software from other places but Windows 7 already has one installed in it. When you turn on the system, you need to make sure that the installed firewall is on if you haven’t replaced it already. You can go into the Network Control Panel and it will tell you if it is on or not. Most of the time, it will be on already but there are some cases where it is not.

These are the main two steps that you need to take when you purchase a brand new computer with Windows 7 on it. Windows 7 is a very secure operating system but you need to make sure that you help keep it secure by enabling all of the tools that it needs to stay that way.

When we use a firewall on our computer, it gives us the ability to effectively become a bouncer with our system. We have the power to selectively decide who is able to get in to or out our system through the internet. If there is a program that is installed but we do not expect it to try and access the internet, we can prevent it from doing that. We have to be smart when we decide which program should have access to the outside network and which ones shouldn’t. There are a couple of factors that will help you decide which programs should be granted permission to do this. In this article we will show you how you can decide which ones you should let have access to the internet and which ones you should not. By the end of this article, anytime that you download a new program, you will be able to see very clearly if it should be allowed this type of access or not.

The first way that will help you decide if the program should be able to access the internet or not is your familiarity with the program. This means that trust is the number one factor that will play into your decision. If the program is something that you have used for awhile now or it is made by a company that you absolutely trust, then you will most likely be comfortable in letting it access the outside internet. It is the programs that are new to you that you will have more problems in trusting. But even if you trust the company, before you let the program access the internet, you should still check to see why it wants to have this ability. There are plenty of companies that started off trustworthy but turned into a nightmare for its users.

Another big factor in whether you should allow the program to use the internet is if that is what you downloaded the program to do. In other words, if the program was downloaded to be used as a text editor only, then there is no reason why it should need the internet. The only reason why it would want to access it is so that it is allowed to send usage data about you and the program. That is not a bad thing in of itself but it also not a reason why a program should be granted such access. So when you download and install a program to your computer, make sure that you know what it does first. That will help you decide if it needs to be on the internet or not.

Allowing a program to have access past your firewalls is a very important thing. If you allow the wrong program to have this privilege then you can be setting up yourself up for disaster. This is why you should know as much about the program as possible before making such a decision. If you do not then you can end up paying the price later on down the line.

If you are a person that worries about the set up of their computer, then one of the first things that you do is to make sure that everything is secure. As we all know, in the age of the internet, security is the most important things that we can think about when it comes to our computer. Earlier in the lives of home computers, there was no internet as we know it now. The main thing that we had to worry about was someone physically accessing our system. Now that is not the case. We have to make sure that we have the right software tools that will allow us to keep our computer safe when we travel down that road known as the World Wide Web. There are two key pieces of software that will help you do this. These software tools are known as a firewall and antivirus. If you are a computer beginner, you may have heard of these solutions but you might not quite know what they are. In this article we will walk you through what they do, and how you can use them to keep your computer safe.

When we talk about firewalls, we are talking about a program that guards the entrances of your computer. These entrances are known as ports and they allow you to have a connection with the outside world. Every day, the bad guys are looking for new ways to be able to get into your computer by using these ports. To prevent that from happening, you use this software to hold them off at the pass. If you set the software up right, then the bad guys will have a very hard time getting into your system. The only drawback to this type of software is that you are going to have to open up some of the ports of your computer. You have certain programs that need to be able to access the internet so you need to allow them a way through. This is known as port forwarding. Other than allowing port forwarding, all of the rest of your ports should be safe from intruders.

The most important piece of software that you should have on your computer is the one that we are about to talk about next. It is known as the antivirus and it is what keeps your computer safe from being infected. If you have watched the news at all, you will no doubt have heard about black hat hackers trying to infect your computer. They do this by putting little rogue programs on your computer known as viruses. These viruses can cause your computer to do a number of things that you do not want it to do. So to prevent that from happening, you can run a program called an antivirus that will detect them as soon as they are on your computer. This way you can stop them in their tracks before they do any harm. Antivirus is key to having a well secured computer system.

As you see, having your computer well secured is very important. If you have two of the software programs that we just discussed then you are on the right path.

When you have an operating system with as many features in it that Windows 7 has, there is a lot that you have to look over. You have to make sure that your decisions allow you to keep certain components of the system safe from being compromised. This attention to security also has to be paid to your home network as well. You have to be sure that you are able to keep all of the threats that you possibly can, out of your system. So we have put together a couple of tools that will allow you to keep your home network safe and as an extension, your personal computer as well. When it comes to the threats to your network, you have to worry about both the internet and the physical threats that can happen. Most people only worry about the threats that come from the internet. They never think about the threats that can come from your next door neighbor.

Some of the tools that we mention may be overkill for a small network but they will help keep you and your network safe. Other tools that we mention are easy to use and made for normal consumer usage. We do not expect you to use every tool that is at your disposal to protect your home network but we want to let you know that the option is available just in case you need it.

One of the tools that you can use to keep your network safe is a tool called NMap. It is a free piece of software that you can find on the internet. This tool will scan your network and tell you what computers are connected to it. This can help expose if someone is connected to your network that should not be. You can also use the tool to help expose any weakness in your network. It will show you open ports that are vulnerable to someone being able to get into your network. Seeing which ports are open on your system will allow you to be proactive against any threats before they happen.

Another tool that you can use to help protect your home network is the firewall that already comes with your router. Most people will plug the router in and never mess with it again. If you actually explore all of the options that are available, you will find that it has a whole suite of applications that will be able to keep your network safe. It is up to you to actually turn these features on. On the newer routers, the firewall is turned on automatically. But it still may not be optimized to best protect your network. Read your manual and see what you will need to do to make sure that the router is using all of its abilities.

When you are using the internet at home, you have to deal with a multitude of attacks that may be floating around waiting to strike. But when you have a corporate network that you maintain, you have to not only deal with the attacks that are already on the internet, but also attacks that may be created especially for you. Many black hat hackers see breaking through a corporate network as a big achievement. They know that a corporate network will have real security compared to a home user. So this means that when they are able to infiltrate past a corporate network, this will lead not only to more valuable data but also more esteem in the hacker community. To stop them, you must have not only the latest in software security, but the latest in hardware security as well.

When you have a corporate network that you have to secure, you have to make sure that your hardware firewall is one of the best in the market. A firewall becomes your mainline of defense when you are dealing with outside threats. Yes, you may have the latest in corporate security anti virus, but that is only good if the infection has already gotten past your first line of defense. You have to make sure that this doesn’t happen. So to avoid this type of intrusion from happening, make sure that your corporate firewall is top notch. A company such as Cisco will have what you need to keep your organization’s data protected from outside threats. Also, you can look into hardware that will scan the incoming emails for your organization. The email process is another way that attackers are able to get their malware on your corporate networks. So having a dedicated piece of hardware that will scan your incoming emails will help in being able to thwart the bad guys before they enter your system.

After you have the right hardware that is needed in protecting your organization, you are going to have to look at the right software solutions as well. When you are securing your computer at home, usually software is your first line of defense. But on a corporate network, it is used more as the secondary line of defense. The official back up just in case anything is able to get past your hardware protections. Also when you are looking at software solutions for a corporate network, you are not going to be able to use just the normal anti virus software. You are going to have to go with the enterprise edition since it is going to have to protect so many people. All of the top vendors have a enterprise version of their software that you can take advantage of.

But anti virus is not the only software that you are going to need when you are protecting your network. You are going to need some sort of enterprise anti spyware solution as well. While spyware can be just a nuisance on a home computer, on a corporate network it can give away lots of insider secrets. This is why you need to make sure that your network is protected from the tracking software that goes along with spyware.

To stop black hat hackers on a corporate network, you will need these tools to get the job done. As long as you make sure that everything is up to date and you should be fine.

When we need to protect our computers from outside intruders, there are a few options that are available to us. We need these options, because everyday our computer is probed by strangers that want to be able to access our personal information. They will take our information and sell it to the highest bidder. So to help prevent people from being able to penetrate our computer, we can use software known as a firewall. A firewall will block the ports of your computer and keep the bad guys from getting in. But, there are several different firewall solutions that we can use to get the job done. And our job is made a little easier by using Windows 7, one of the most secured operating systems out there.

The first type of firewall solution that you can set up to block intruders from your computer, is a hardware solution. You can use a software firewall or a hardware firewall. Most experts tend to agree that a hardware version is the better way to protect your computer. Preferably, you should have mix of the two, both a hardware and a software firewall set up. When you are dealing with a corporate network, then you could spend thousands of dollars on a firewall that will help protect you. But for the average home user trying to protect their network, the hardware solution would come in the form of your router. If you go into the router administration settings, you will see that there is an option that you can turn a firewall on or off. Most routers come with this option already turned on. The firewall on your home router can be the best option that you have when protecting your computer. Make sure that you keep it on.

Even if you have the hardware firewall option nailed down, you still want to back that up with a software firewall as well. This way your computer has double the protection. There are a few options that you can use for a software firewall. One of these solutions is the firewall that comes already built into Windows 7. In the past, the firewall that came with the Windows operating system was not a strong solution and you still needed a third party option to help back you up. But in Windows 7, the firewall is as robust as any third party solution that is on the market. You can surf the web safely knowing that you have a full featured firewall backing you up.

The last solution in regards to firewalls on Windows 7, is to use a third party solution. There are many companies that make a full featured suite of firewall products that will help protect your computer. You may even be able to purchase a firewall package that will also come with other security products as well. Products such as an anti virus solution. Over the years, some of the top software solutions out there, have really refined their products so that they can take on any attacker trying to get into your system. They have seen the worse that the web has to offer and they were able to create solutions for it. You will not be putting your computer in any type of harm if you went with a well known third party firewall vendor.

As you can see, there are many options that are available to you when it comes to a firewall. Take your time, and pick what solutions seems right to you.