Enable Your Firewall to Ward Off Viruses

One of the best practices to protect you from virus threats over the local network and the internet is setting up a firewall program. Typically what a firewall program does is to monitor all your incoming and outgoing data and scan it automatically for any viruses threat whatsoever that are transmitted through such means.

The most accessible firewall available to most PCs is Microsoft Windows Firewall which is included in the whole Windows package, however in certain cases it is not automatically enabled for you and you might need to set it up as your primary firewall program in first use.

Setting up Windows Firewall as Your Default Firewall Protection Program

1. Click Start

2. Choose Control Panel

3. Navigate through to "Network and Internet Connections" category and then choose "Network Connections" (When you are in the Control Panel's classic view, simply just look for Network Connections

4. Right click on the connection you use, which in times will be the only one available or the active one, or named via your Internet Service Provider. (In some cases if you have several internet connections, you might need to enable the firewall program for all)

5. Click "Properties" from the context menu that appears

6. Click on Advanced Tab, then under Internet Connection Firewall, select Protect my computer and network

7. Hit Ok

In Windows Seven you can enable Windows Firewall Program by doing the following

1. Click Start

2. Open Control Panel (Windows Seven control panel by default is in the small icons view, and what you see is basically a list, alphabetically left to right and top to bottom.)

3. Click Windows Firewall at the very bottom

4. The first menu you'll see shall give you the information about your Home and Public Network Connections, simply click to expand one to view or hide the details about your firewall protection

5. If in some cases that your firewall program is not enabled by default, on the left navigation panel, click "Turn Windows Firewall on or off"

6. After which, what you'll see is an option to enable your Windows Firewall Protection Program for each of your Home Network Connections or the Public Network, or the Internet.

7. Choose "Turn on Windows Firewall" for each

8. Below that on the checkboxes, check the second option which is to notify of blocked programs.

What's good about Windows Firewall and basically why I choose Windows Firewall over any other third party software firewall protection programs is that Microsoft being such a huge company, I doubt that any random software should have a richer database than Microsoft for detecting computer threats, and among other things, is that it runs in the background which means you don't have to bother much after simply configuring it. And, it is included with windows by default.

While most other people may have doubts and chose to just Google other free alternatives to Windows Firewall via third party software, I do not think it's the wisest, since you will have to deal with all the troubles of these third party freeware programs. I plan to discuss the major issues about third party freeware to consider when choosing them over the default programs that come with your operating systems.