Windows Firewall

When my identity was stolen, we weren’t sure how it could possibly have happened. It seemed to me like I had been as safe as possible. It turns out a Windows firewall might have helped. We filed a police report and an official investigation began. It took quite a long time, but eventually we found out that the computers at my children’s school had been hacked. The hacker got away with the personal information of the families of every student in that school, going back even a few years to when that information first became computerized. It also turned out that we weren’t the only family who had been targeted.

If the school’s computers had been running a Windows firewall, none of this would likely have happened. Even scarier is how vulnerable it turns out our own personal computers are. If you aren’t running a Windows firewall, then your computer is vulnerable to intrusion. It’s that simple.

If you place orders online, then imagine if someone were to intercept that data. If you pay your bills online, imagine if someone managed to get your passwords. Imagine if a backdoor virus infected your computer, and someone gained full remote control over your machine. They could browse every file on your computer.

I was never very conscious of this risk until my identity theft incident. At that point, I sat down and brainstormed everything I could do to keep myself safe. I never want to go through that humiliating experience again. One of the ways data thieves accomplish their mischief is through computer intrusion. Protecting against this requires a Windows firewall. So I went shopping.

The first firewall I tried was nothing more than an annoyance. I want protection, but I don’t want windows popping up on my screen every two minutes while I’m trying to browse. So I did some research, and found that there was on program that consistently topped the independent tests for both antivirus and Windows firewall – Eset Smart Security. Not only was it the most effective, but it also ran light on system resources – meaning it won’t slow your computer down as many similar programs tend to do.

I gave it a try, and a few days later found myself getting a license to cover all the computers in the house. It was all the studies had found it to be. Not only was it effective, but it was so lightweight that the only way I even know it’s running is when it gives me legitimate warnings. And this package includes their award-winning Nod32 Antivirus software, which has been found by independent studies to be among the most effective of all antivirus programs available. This means that if a backdoor somehow does make it onto your computer – a virus that would normally allow outside hackers to take control of your computer remotely – not only will Smart Security’s firewall block it from working, but Nod32 will detect the virus and clean it from your system. You really won’t find a better security package for your personal computer.

After all the headaches I’ve had with other computer security packages, this program was a major relief.