I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me yesterday
that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They suggested I
should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
"ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now since
I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
which is a bit confusing and daunting

I am using Vista Ultimate and only use the Windows Vista Firewall however,
my broadband connection does work through a modem/router (the router
effectively being a hardware firewall rather than software). The 'ping' you
refer to from ShieldUp simply means that the ShieldsUp program managed to
get through the firewall and register your IP address.

While I use Vista's firewall I have also always been an advocate of Zone
Alarm (the free version). If you feel worried or threatened by what you read
regarding firewalls and want to make the change, the by all means download
Zone Alarm (free version) I would certainly recommend it.


--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

"AliceZ" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1A96E465-10D8-4A3B-80D0-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
> was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me
> yesterday
> that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They
> suggested I
> should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
> that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
> "ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
> Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now
> since
> I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
> novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
> which is a bit confusing and daunting

There is nothing wrong with Vista's built-in firewall.
However, for maximum protection, consider installing
a comprehensive anti-virus/security program, such as
Windows OneCare. You can try it FREE for 90 days.
http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/default.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

"AliceZ" wrote:

I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me yesterday
that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They suggested I
should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
"ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now since
I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
which is a bit confusing and daunting

Just wanted to mention that I tried the Shields Up not only on the Toshiba
notebook with Vista Home Premium Sp1 (with also AVG-AV; AVG-AS, SpyBlaster),
but also on our WinXPsp2 desktop which has NAV (AVG-AS; AdAware, SpyBlaster)
and that also showed the same "ping" thing.

"AliceZ" wrote:

> I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
> was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me yesterday
> that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They suggested I
> should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
> that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
> "ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
> Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now since
> I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
> novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
> which is a bit confusing and daunting

Sorry - forgot to mention that I also use DSL.

"AliceZ" wrote:

> Just wanted to mention that I tried the Shields Up not only on the Toshiba
> notebook with Vista Home Premium Sp1 (with also AVG-AV; AVG-AS, SpyBlaster),
> but also on our WinXPsp2 desktop which has NAV (AVG-AS; AdAware, SpyBlaster)
> and that also showed the same "ping" thing.
>
> "AliceZ" wrote:
>
> > I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
> > was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me yesterday
> > that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They suggested I
> > should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
> > that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
> > "ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.
> >
> > Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
> > Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now since
> > I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
> > novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
> > which is a bit confusing and daunting

Run the Symantec Security check:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/d...d=ie&venid=sym

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

"AliceZ" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:4231904C-5913-4A96-B836-(E-Mail Removed)...
Sorry - forgot to mention that I also use DSL.

"AliceZ" wrote:

> Just wanted to mention that I tried the Shields Up not only on the Toshiba
> notebook with Vista Home Premium Sp1 (with also AVG-AV; AVG-AS, SpyBlaster),
> but also on our WinXPsp2 desktop which has NAV (AVG-AS; AdAware, SpyBlaster)
> and that also showed the same "ping" thing.
>
> "AliceZ" wrote:
>
> > I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
> > was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me yesterday
> > that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They suggested I
> > should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
> > that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
> > "ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.
> >
> > Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
> > Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now since
> > I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
> > novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
> > which is a bit confusing and daunting

"AliceZ" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1A96E465-10D8-4A3B-80D0-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which
> I
> was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me
> yesterday
> that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective. They
> suggested I
> should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say). They mentioned
> that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
> "ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.

ShieldsUP is written by Steve Gibson, whom some revere as a security genius,
and the rest of us think he's a plagiarising idiot who doesn't know what
he's talking about.

It has been a long time since 'ping' was anything remotely like a security
threat. I personally like keeping it in place, as it is used as a measure of
network connectivity.

The firewall in Windows Vista is sufficient for most purposes, and is
configurable. ZoneAlarm (what 'ZA' usually stands for) is something of a
fashion, and if you want a program that keeps asking "is it okay to let this
application communicate to the Internet?", and believe that you can
competently answer that question, then perhaps it's for you. However,
Windows Vista's firewall does a thoroughly competent job of preventing
traffic that you didn't invite.

> Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
> Firewall? Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now
> since
> I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
> novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
> which is a bit confusing and daunting

Perhaps now is not the time to be adding a new program that is going to
assume you understand what you're doing?

Make sure you keep patched, keep your anti-virus and anti-spyware updated
(there are free anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, if you can't afford to
keep current on the short-term subscription to whatever came with your
system), and you should be ahead of most people.

The big additional feature most people will suggest ZoneAlarm for is that of
"outbound filtering". In an enterprise, this could be useful, in that it
allows you to prevent policy-breaking programs from communicating outside
the system - for a home user, it's "game over" already if you have an
unauthorised program installed on your system. [And in an enterprise, there
are better tools than ZoneAlarm available - an enterprise would not trust a
potentially-malicious machine to police itself]

Alun.
~~~~
--
Texas Imperial Software | Web: http://www.wftpd.com/
23921 57th Ave SE | Blog: http://msmvps.com/alunj/
Woodinville WA 98072-8661 | WFTPD, WFTPD Pro are Windows FTP servers.
Fax/Voice +1(425)807-1787 | Try our NEW client software, WFTPD Explorer.

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:35:02 -0700, AliceZ
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
>was told had good security programs installed)

what security programs are those?

>and someone told me yesterday that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is
>not (very) effective.

That's just the usual nonsense from clueless "outbound control"
junkies.

>They suggested I should use the (new) ZA (which is about 45MB, so they say).

For what purpose? - For screwing up your network and making your
system possibly more vulnerable? Fine - go ahead.

>They mentioned that they used "ShieldsUP" to test Vista Premium's Firewall and found a
>"ping" (don't know what that is!) got through.

Yes. Followers of Gibsons "stealthing" nonsense will often say
something like that. They are mostly clueless security wannabees. As
long as you're not exposing any open ports you should be fine.
Responding to pings is not to be considered a security risk unless you
believe in security theater.

>Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions about the Vista Home Premium's
>Firewall?

It's good enough.

>Or is this just too "hi tech" for me to get worried about now since
>I just bought the new Toshiba with Vista Home Premium sp1 and since I am a
>novice at all of this? I am trying to learn so much, as soon as possible,
>which is a bit confusing and daunting

As a novice you should pay more attention to what you do, what sites
you visit and so on. Don't click on everything you see and don't
run/install/allow all kinds of crap from dubious sources.

And most important: Keep your system patched.

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:26:01 -0700, AliceZ
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Just wanted to mention that I tried the Shields Up not only on the Toshiba
>notebook with Vista Home Premium Sp1 (with also AVG-AV; AVG-AS, SpyBlaster),
>but also on our WinXPsp2 desktop which has NAV (AVG-AS; AdAware, SpyBlaster)
>and that also showed the same "ping" thing.

This indicates that your DSL thing is also a router, and ShieldsUp is
actually testing this device and not your machine. Nonetheless no real
issue.

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:35:02 -0700, AliceZ
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I just bought a Toshbia A305 S6825 notebook with Vista Premium sp1 (which I
> was told had good security programs installed) and someone told me yesterday
> that the Firewall on Virsta Premium is not (very) effective.


I disagree. I think the built-in Vista firewall is fine, and there's
no reason to avoid using it. It's what I use.

However, regarding having "good security programs installed," note
that besides a firewall, you also need an anti-virus program, and at
least two anti-spyware programs.

Vista does *not* come with anti-virus software and you need to install
a third-party product. I recommend either the freeware Avast, or
ESET's NOD32, if you are willing to pay for one.

Regarding anti-spyware, Vista comes with Windows Defender. It's OK,
but note that just using one anti-spyware program is *not* good
enough. Eric Howes, who has done extensive testing on Anti-Spyware
products,
states:

"No single anti-spyware scanner removes everything. Even the
best-performing anti-spyware scanner in these tests missed fully one
quarter of the "critical" files and Registry entries" See
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm

I recommend that you use two or more of the following:

Spybot Search and Destroy
Adaware
Spyware Blaster
Windows Defender
Super-Antispyware



--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
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