Firewall                Unusable

       or 

PC Tools Firewall Plus is a powerful free personal firewall for Windows® that protects your computer by preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your computer through the Internet or a network. By monitoring applications that connect to the network Firewall Plus can stop Trojans, backdoors, keyloggers and
other malware from damaging your computer and stealing your private information.

PC Tools Firewall Plus is advanced technology designed especially for people, not just experts. Powerful prevention against attacks and known exploits is activated by default while experienced users can optionally create their own advanced packet filtering rules, including IPv6 support, to customize the network defenses. All you need to do is install it for immediate and automatic ongoing protection.

That's how PC Tools Firewall Plus provides world-leading protection, backed by regular Smart Updates, real-time protection and comprehensive network shielding to ensure your PC remains safe and hacker free. PC Tools products are trusted and used by millions of people every day to protect their home and business computers against online threats.

http://www.pctools.com/firewall/

For the adventurous, Beta means a trial version that has not been released to the public yet. (May be some bugs etc.)

Release of PC Tool's Firewall v7 Beta

We are happy to announce the release of PCTFW v7 Beta:

What’s New in this Version:

1. User modes have been removed - there is no Normal/Expert user modes anymore. It's one mode that is simple
to understand for normal user and has advanced options for advanced users.
2. We have added more Extensive Security Permission (ESP) - Improved the produce Self Protection.
3. Improved the 'look and feel' of the Application rules.
4. More informative pop ups.
5. Different 'look and feel' for Profiles (not so different just a little).
6. Network shows adapter information and adapters can show which network is connected to them.
7. Fixed BUGs of previous version

To download, please click here!

http://www.pctools.com/mirror/fw7-beta.exe

Good Cookies?

Most Cookies and "Web Bugs" are actually beneficial.

About useful cookies. I'd been visiting buy.com for
months to check their price on Kodak's EasyShare DX3900
digital camera. The price recently fell to under $300. Then, I
deleted buy.com's permanently stored cookie from my hard
drive. When I returned to buy.com, the price of the camera had
shot back up by $50! I let the site place another cookie on my
hard drive & checked the price of the camera again it had
dropped $21 but still was priced about $30 higher than before
I'd deleted that cookie. I had no idea a cookie could be so
valuable to me. ---

One of the most common uses of Cookies is to track "returning visitors"
to a site: Depending on when you were last on a site, and what pages you
visited when you were there, you may be shown custom content that varies
visit to visit. For example, in this case, it appears that the site is
set up to reward returning visitors with an automatic markdown--- a kind
of private sale. Delete the Cookie, and you lose access to the automatic
markdown.

Other web sites use Cookies to display "getting started" info to new
visitors, and omit that info for later visits. Delete the Cookie, and
you never get past the "getting started" info.

Likewise, some sites that require a login use a Cooke as a kind of
ticket to let you back into the site at a later date. If you delete the
Cookie, you have to log in from scratch.

In fact, almost all uses for Cookies are either benign or actively
helpful. It's actually very hard to subvert Cookies to evil purposes---
although anti-Cookie fanatics make them sound like a gaping security
hole. They're not: Most Cookies are utterly harmless.

Ironically, in a misguided attempt to increase security, many users are
blocking all Cookies, "web bugs" and the like. Not only do they not
materially improve their security, but they do create another very real
problem.
==================================================

I appreciated the review of desktop firewalls, however I feel
your criticism of ZAP3's privacy features is off-base....
Other desktop firewalls have this capability, too, e.g.
Outpost, and there are many standalone products that folks use
to kill banners, pop-ups, etc. I encourage you to address this
issue more generally and educate users about why they might
want to allow some kinds of advertising to appear in their
browsers. As is, many of us ruthlessly and indiscriminately
block as much advertising as possible. ---

This man is on to something: It's the law of unintended consequences. If a
site gets its revenue from ads, and site visitors prevent the ads from
displaying or being counted (the most common use for web bugs is simply
counting how many times and ad was displayed), the site owners don't get
paid, and the site will go out of business.

Don't get me wrong: Some forms of advertising are way too intrusive. I
will never, ever buy an X10 camera, for example, if only to punish the
X10 company for all those ridiculous pop-under ads they spawn. And if a
site has too many pop-up/pop-under/pop-over/pop-on top/pop-whatever ads,
I simply take my clicks elsewhere.

But wholesale blocking of *all* ad-related traffic is something else:
Blocking even non-obtrusive ads/Cookies/Bugs/etc is a sure-fire way to
help guarantee that even good ad-supported sites will go out of
business.

If you've read this newsletter for any length of time, you know I'm a
nut about security. But most of the supposed security issues with
Cookies and Bugs simply are a myth--- often promulgated by people who
want to sell you anti-Cookie/Bug/Ad software or services: These
individuals take a small matter, scare you to death by blowing it way
out of proportion, and then offer to provide you with the solution to
your (artificially-increased) fears.

Worse, in many discussions, anti-Cookie/Bug/Ad stuff is given equal
footing with anti-spyware or anti-virus tools. This blurs the
distinction between very real, high-risk threats--- like spyware,
viruses, worms, etc--- and very low-risk threats (like Cookies and Web
Bugs).

By analogy: It's as if domestic insurance policies were designed to
protect your belongings against fire--- and meteor strike. Isn't it
silly to put low-probability threats on the same footing as higher
probability threats?

But I know I'm swimming against the tide on this one. People *feel* more
secure blocking all Ads/Cookies/Bugs/Etc, and so they'll do it, even if
(1) it really doesn't do much to make them more secure; and (2) even if
it helps to kill off the free sites they like to visit.
I tried to explain this in
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=6506953, which shows you what would have to happen behind the scenes for a Cookie, Bug, Beacon (or what not) actually to be a *real* security threat to you. Once you see what's involved, you'll know why I regard these things as a mostly trivial matter, and not worth worrying about.
But I know that most people's minds are made up: "Cookies/Bugs/Beacons
are bad! They're just there to spy on you!" It doesn't matter that this
popular sentiment is simply not true. Oh, well.

I'll make this prediction with 100% confidence: As Cookie/Bug/Ad/Beacon
blockers become more pervasive, more and more "free" sites and services
will go away. Count on it.
=======================================================

Speaking of security: PC911--- a site we've discussed several time in
the past--- has just released an updated version of its how-to article
on "Securing Windows." It's at:
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/securingwindows1.html

That's primarily for Windows 2000 and XP, but there's other info in the
general "Safe computing" section of the site that's also applies more
broadly. Check it out!

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