Imagine living in a medieval castle and the massed armies of the Barbarians are about to pay you a visit. And they’ve not come for tea and cakes and a chat with your mother. What they’re after is a bit of looting and pillaging.

Now, if your castle boasts a nice tall wall and a deep moat, perhaps with a couple of thousand well paid and highly trained guards, then odds-on, you’re going to survive. If you only have a small privet hedge, no matter how well manicured, then the barbarians are definitely going to spoil your weekend.

It’s the same with your computer. Surfing the internet without any solid wall to protect you is equally as dangerous and there’s plenty of barbarians out there to take advantage of it.

So, the modern day equivalent of a high wall and a moat, is a firewall. And everyone must have one. If you don’t, or you’re not sure, then stop using your computer and find out.

A firewall is piece of software that effectively controls what’s coming into your computer and what’s going out. It does this by controlling what’s known as ports, which are virtual pathways that programmes and applications use to connect to each other, and the internet. Literally thousands of ports exist and this is why you need a separate programme to control who’s using them. To open one web page, might involve up to a 100 ports, so the firewall is there to welcome friends, but dissuade foes.

You can see why a good firewall is indispensable when it comes to malware and trojans. These horrible critters like to communicate with their mother ship, so stopping the chance to update, upgrade, or mutate, is a great step forward in keeping them under control.

Now, when it comes to such a vital piece of software, there is quite a choice of who can provide it. The best way to get such protection is a buy an anti-virus suite that includes it within its overall package.

Windows XP, upgraded with the Service Pack 2, comes complete with an integral firewall. The problem is, that it works only one way. It happily blocks and checks traffic coming in, but turns a blind eye to traffic going out. So, you see the problem. A nasty piece of backdoor software could be sat on your computer happily beaming out your personal details, and nothing is there to stop it.

So, you are advised to use other firewalls to offer you two-way protection, and most of the computer security firms offer such examples. And when you first get a firewall, you will have to spend a little time ‘training’ it as to your particular surfing habits, because it cannot be expected to work everything out for you.

So, what you find, is that if the firewall is unsure as to the website’s legitimacy, or as to the connection you are trying to make, it will create a message box, asking if you want to connect. It will usually outline the type of link and advise you on what you should do. The firewall should also have a number of settings, allowing you to be cautious, or very cautious in what you link up to.

Now a quick chat about Windows Vista. This now has a good two-way firewall, but, there’s a slight problem. It allows all outgoing traffic by default, so this is in effect assuming that your computer is free of viruses. In other words, it might already be sitting out there talking to the mother ship and so the Vista firewall might not see anything bad in it. So, the advice is to give your computer a sound wipe before you activate the full Vista firewall. Also, people have also reported back that the other problem with the Vista firewall is that it is rather complicated to set-up, which might put off quite a few people.

So, the general advice still remains to consider buying an external firewall, one that is easy to use and comes within a general anti-virus package and that is easy to use.

Right, you’ve got the firewall and you can put up your feet and relax, and cast a lazy glance at the Barbarians who try as they might, just can’t breach your wall. Nice one.

Firewall Protection Explained – Recap

• you must have a firewall if you want to surf safely;
• Windows XP firewall is not strong enough;
• Windows Vista is better, but has one, or two issues.