firewall

Windows ships with an effective suite of security tools, including a firewall, but third-party firewalls are popular with many users. Many are free, and the most popular ones do a good job keeping millions of users safe from cyber attacks, hackers, and other intrusive threats. Privacyware's Privatefirewall has all the features and most of the extras that most personal firewall and host intrusion prevention freeware (HIPS) offer, like its Process Monitor and Port Tracking tools. Its chief advantages are its intelligent tracking feature and its extensive explanations. Privatefirewall monitors your online activity privately to learn your usage patterns. It … Read more

Millions of Internet users in Iran could soon be permanently cut off from the Web, social networks, and e-mail.

In a statement released last week, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced plans to establish a national intranet within five months in an effort to create a "clean Internet," the International Business Times reported today. "All Internet Service Providers (ISP) should only present National Internet by August," Taghipour said in the statement.

Web sites such as Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo will be blocked and replaced by government-administered services such as Iran Mail … Read more

TeamViewer is an app that lets you connect to other Macs and PCs via the Internet to share desktops, transfer files, walk through presentations, and control other computers remotely. It's even free for noncommercial use, making it a great choice for your pro bono troubleshooting for friends and family, or for just accessing your own Mac from the road.

The interface is simple: you just open TeamViewer and you're prompted to either create a session or wait for one. A unique ID and password is created for each session, and you need TeamViewer on both computers (if you'… Read more

China's "Great Firewall" is the tongue-in-cheek way to refer to the Chinese government's blocking and censorship of Web sites. And, somehow, that wall has been fractured this week.

It all started when Chinese citizens flooded President Obama's Google+ page over the weekend, leaving thousands of messages ranging from jokes to begging the U.S. president to do something about China's civil rights issues.

Now, Reuters reports that Chinese Internet users have accessed YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter--all sites normally blocked by the Great Firewall.

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions about the OS X Firewall's stealth mode failing to work properly, the iTunes genius bar no longer being available in iTunes, and how to increase text size in both Mail and the Mac App Store. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so post your own suggestions in the comments!

Question: OS X Firewall's stealth mode failing MacFixIt reader Tony asks:

A significantly improved installation procedure and a new look are the notable improvements to ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2012 (download).

ZoneAlarm borrows its new look from the full ZoneAlarm security suite, replacing the old horizontal buttons with three large icons and boxes. One takes you to settings for your computer's security, the middle focuses on Internet traffic, and the third addresses your identity and data.

ZoneAlarm Free has for some time offered 2GB of online storage and credit monitoring gratis.

The new ZoneAlarm installer also takes a page from its suite siblings, so that you only have to download a … Read more

The bottom line: McAfee takes aim at blocking bots in its latest version, although weak test scores mean that we don't recommend this year's McAfee suite.

Review: McAfee released a major overhaul to its security suite back in 2010, coming up with a new vertically oriented interface that made navigating much easier. Since then, the annual updates have been incremental at best, improving the feature set yet not making substantial changes overall. McAfee Total Protection 2012 adds some new features, but these are frankly more about keeping up with the Joneses--or at least, keeping up with the Nortons … Read more

The bottom line: Following a banner year in 2011, the new F-Secure Internet Security 2012 doesn't introduce many new changes, but it does maintain many of the suite's high performance marks on both system impact and security.

Review: The Finnish security firm F-Secure gains a large percentage of its business from corporate accounts and platform operators, but that doesn't mean that it treats its consumer security suites as a ginger-haired child of indeterminate parentage and poor temperament. F-Secure Internet Security 2012 focuses on keeping its security ahead of the curve, along with some ease-of-use improvements. However, as … Read more

The bottom line: Following on last year's big overhaul, Trend Micro makes a series of smaller changes to this year's Titanium security suites. Four differences make this version $10 cheaper than Titanium Maximum Security, but for many those will be must-haves.

Review: Last year was a headliner for Trend Micro's security suites. Overhauled with a lightweight interface and cloud-based detection, and rebranded as Trend Micro Titanium, the changes made the suite competitive again. The 2012 version builds on those improvements, so this year doesn't have a lot of big changes. Still, there are enough substantial changes … Read more