If you connect to the Internet--particularly over a broadband connection--you should have a firewall. We take a look at two popular personal firewall packages: McAfee Personal Firewall and Symantec's latest personal network security application, Norton Personal Firewall 2001. Read our reviews to find out which one offers the security and features you need.
Norton Personal Firewall 2001
We had a chance to evaluate the beta for Norton Personal Firewall 2001, which is currently shipping for AU$99.00. It's a significant upgrade (version 3.0 of Norton Firewall product) that adds several innovative features.
The most useful addition is the ability to scan your hard drive for Internet applications. With other firewall programs, you have to approve, or disapprove, the activity of each of your Internet programs when it first tries to break through the firewall, which can be a tedious process. Where some firewall programs may find a handful of popular Net applications, Norton Personal Firewall can find hundreds of programs and add configuration files for them during the initial setup.
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Like BlackICE Defender, the Norton program can detect when your system is being port-scanned and dynamically block all access to the intruder. And as with products like ZoneAlarm Pro, you can easily add IP addresses to a trusted zone, which makes it simple to configure the program for a network. Norton Personal Firewall also includes some useful privacy features, such as the ability to protect specific information from prying eyes. It can specifically block access to your credit-card numbers, Social Security number, and email address, unless you give your permission for their release.
Norton Personal Firewall 2001 does an excellent job of shielding users from the complexities of a firewall. You can separately adjust the security, Internet access, and privacy to minimal, medium, and high settings (they're set to medium by default), or dig deeper into each setting and adjust its components to create customised levels. All in all, this latest version is much more powerful than its predecessors yet it's still one of the most user-friendly firewall programs to use.
It's pricier than many personal firewall products but it doesn't carry ongoing subscription costs commonly attached to others such as McAfee Personal Firewall.
Norton Personal Firewall 2001
Company:Symantec
Price:AU$99.00
Distributor: Syantec Australia
Phone:(02) 8879 1000
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