Microsoft Windows XP Firewall

Given the flack the company has taken over security and the number of holes that have been found over the years in various Microsoft products, it's hardly surprising Windows XP includes a firewall. It's not immediately obvious - you turn it on from the Advanced properties tab of a network connection by ticking a box, and that's more or less it. It can also be enabled by the Network SetupWizard, but there's not much in the way of configuration options.

Whether it's fear of being seen to encroach on another area of third-party utilities or lack of interest, it's still a mystery the firewall doesn't have a fancier interface. The advanced settings offer three simple tabs - Services, Security Logging and ICMP.

The middle one turns on logging to a text file, while the other two provide a range of tick boxes for specific items, such as Web Server, Remote Desktop, FTP Server or ICMP echo request.While the net savvy will understand, it's not exactly plain English. For novice users, the application-based approach taken by most of the competition is easier to understand. On the services tab, you can add extra if you need to ? but you?ll have to understand what port numbers are being

The logging is not for the novice, either. Frankly, it's of such a quantity that it's debatable whether it's for anybody, except the die-hard network analyst. It's a simple text file with a header line at the top, then rows and rows of raw information.

All this is arguably beside the point, since it does the job and blocks traffic quite happily. But if you want to do things that aren?t covered, then you'll have to learn fast. Since there's no network detection as such, file sharing was blocked on the local network. And there's no control of outgoing connections should your machine be infected with a Trojan or worm.

Contact: Microsoft
www.microsoft.com

Price:
Included with Windows XP

System requirements:
N/A - included withWindows XP

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