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If you have a cable
or DSL connection, a firewall is generally recommended. It's not that you're safe from unwanted intruders while
using a regular phone modem, but the odds of being stricken are smaller.
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Shields UP! will try to break into your computer.
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Should you equip yourself with an Internet prophylactic? Test your computer's
security at Shields UP!. You'll get some idea just how safe are your financial records, passwords, family
and friends' names and addresses.
We've used two software firewalls: BlackICE Defender and ZoneAlarm. While they have much
in common, for us ZoneAlarm wins on price, protection, relative ease of use.
Don't get us wrong, no firewall is simple. You have to make certain critical
decisions, often trading transparency of use for security. You can make ZoneAlarm so secure that every time one
of your applications tries to access the Net you have to approve.
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Decide which programs have free Internet access.
Or, use the default settings.
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It's more practical to freely let email in and out, and allow your browser
to surf at your whim. But you may wish to stop all else. RealPlayer, for example, calls home on occasion. Windows
Critical Updates does likewise. If you so choose, you'll be alerted when such activity takes place and can approve/disapprove.
If another computer tries to access yours, ZoneAlarm will not only block it and notify you, but in many cases tell
you where the "hack" came from.
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Panic button.
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A really nice feature of ZoneAlarm is the "Lock" which you can engage manually, or automatically. As
the name implies, it completely locks out the Internet.
While ZoneAlarm is not a virus scanner, it will quarantine Visual Basic Script e-mail attachments, potentially
nasty buggers that can raise real hell.
ZoneAlarm's online help, with its liberal use of graphics, is among the best we've seen. It will take a few minutes
to go through, but having done so you'll feel more confident and secure about your online security.
If you need even more help, consult Installing ZoneAlarm.
Conclusion: If your machine can't pass the ShieldsUP! test, install ZoneAlarm
right away.
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