This tread is not meant to be reasoned with it is only a way of reaching out to my people the people who I care for and understand. I don’t like to see anyone get the raw deal or the short end of the stick. You are all like family to me and I am a person that protects his own. I have no need to lie or make up stories in here but for a person that is on the internet as much as I am and know how the system works. We have to stay clear focused and not once leave something undone.
I think the internet is the best thing to happen to this world and the information is endless. What were you doing 20 years ago when we didn’t have what we have today, a whole lot more then we do today and we are in it for the duration. Enough of the small talk lets get on with the subject that this thread is meant for.
Internet providers are evolving at a rate that many could not comprehend but it is all the same thing information going out and information coming in. You see that is what makes the internet work, it is a two way switch board working thousands upon thousands times faster then any phone line (Which does not include cell phones).
Now yesterday I asked the question of all questions and a few of you were right and in a way wrong. First off if you think that the phone wire tapping law applies to the internet you are sadly wrong there is no such law yet. What you do and say over the internet goes though servers and these servers can be tapped without a court order and with out you knowing what is going on. Ah, but there are a group of people who are working to get a law passed so that they cannot do this.
When you go into your chat rooms, do you know how much you expose yourself to everyone? You leave the door open for others to peak into. Now it might not be the people who you talk too, but you can bet your internet provider is watching you if they have good reason too. They have control of your computer rather you think they do or not.
That is why my friends I stress so much to make sure you have a good firewall in place to stop people from snooping around inside your computer. And don’t think they can’t because in this world anything is possible. There are a lot of free firewalls out there that do work, and there are a few that are on the market I would not trust. I will talk about them later. The important thing is you can not ever let your defense down for one moment if you firewall gives you a popup find out where it is coming from, see who is trying to connect to your computer.
That is how I learned through the years, is by watching and learning and reading. Most people don’t know how to even set up their own firewall because it takes to much time and they don’t know how to do it right so they just go with the flow and if it works it works and if it don’t oh well who needs it. And these are the people that have more problems with their computers then others.
Like I said earlier, there are many firewalls out on the market and I have tried a lot of them. We might as well add antivirus software too because it plays an important roll in keeping a computer running free and clear. Now if any of you have firewalls that are good please put a link in your replies when you attack me later. So I am going to start with a small list of what I feel is the best software to run on your computer. Now there is a lot that depends on what you want to purchase and how much money you are willing to spend. If you want the best you’re going to have to pay for the best and that means a lot of money.
Let’s start with Symantec as what I feel is the number one antivirus and firewall on the market.
http://www.symantec.com I have been using this product for 3 years now and it has never once let me down. The firewall is top notch and does a great job of keeping you invisible to a point. You will get pop ups from time to time and it gives you the ability to trace where that computer is that is trying to connect with your computer and the best part, you can even block your ISP from doing line checks, or as I call it program checks. If you want to keep your computer very clean they offer a product that is called Norton System works, it has many tools to clean up your computer and keep an eye on the performance of you computer. The only draw back is that it does not come with Norton Personal Firewall you would have to buy that separately.
Then there is a firewall that I recommend to anyone you can get a free copy of it at
www.downloads.com Look for Zone Alarm. Zone Alarm is a very user friendly firewall that is easy to set up and pretty much learns on its own. At first you will get a lot of pop ups and it is very important you read each one. As you go along the pop ups will seem to vanish and that means that this firewall knows your every step, and if you should happen to travel into unknown web area it will let you know that there could be problems so always read what it says.
Now for McAfee software, needless to say it is a good name on the market but there are a lot of issues with the firewall that they are still trying to figure out. It is like a program you install onto your computer but never see it work. That is what scars me the most. I used it and I didn’t have any problems with viruses but it seemed that the firewall just wasn’t doing its job. I could run side by side test with other software but McAfee never came up with anything while the other software did. I have purchased this year 2004 to test it out and I found a lot of bugs at first but when you do an update those bugs were fixed. As a program for antivirus software I would say it does a great job, but I don’t trust the firewall.
So there you have it what I feel is the top 2 ½ when it comes to firewalls. Out of all of them I highly recommend Norton Personal Firewall and Zone Alarm, and by the way it doesn’t hurt to use both you can never be to safe. I do have some advice for Norton Personal Firewall, It is a program that can easily be hacked if you don’t have or options password. I use 125 characters password, you don’t have to use that many but I would use over 10 just to play it safe.
Alright now if anyone can add to this thread on a good note please do so, lets help each other out instead of always having something negative to say. With all of us working closely together it shows how much we can care for our forum. Instead of always saying (Got A Link) I do hope that some of this helps you all to understand that I only want to try to help. Enough said.
