By: Xian

I find every day that people believe that a firewall keeps out computer viruses. Some firewalls do have added functionality that does that but its primary role is to protect against intrusions from outside BUT also to monitor and control outgoing connections. The biggest threat to the average user come from the inside. Android devices are a good example. Many APPROVED apps contain spyware or simply function in a way that it communicates much of who you are, what you do and what you have on your computer or smartphone, without your knowledge or consent. The biggest data security breaches usually come from inside an organisation and not from intrusion from the outside. Do not download and install apps that you do not really know are safe, do not trust approved apps, either. Perhaps reading <a href="http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/virus-spyware/f/3522/p/19525494/20451284.aspx#20451284" rel="nofollow">here</a> may also give bits of insight. Be blessed beyond recognition and have a super day! Another site to read is <a href="http://tysonmax20042003.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/the-guide-to-locking-down-a-pc/#comment-63" rel="nofollow">here</a>. At that site, I posted a link back to your site here, George, so that users can read as widely as possible. Thank you for your most excellent blog here, one that serves the greater community out there and thank you for guiding folks to cyber safety. OK, so I did have ZoneAlarm installed and it did work well, but I still like Private Firewall more and I have it running in stealth now. To disable Windows Firewall, I have manually disabled it in programs>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Services & Applications>Services. I suppose I also could have disabled it with a DWORD = 0 value in the registry, but the menu driven way has worked well this time around. ZoneAlarm has been uninstalled completely with RevoUninstaller and Private Firewall 7.0 is now up and running with maximum settings and <a href="www.grc.com" rel="nofollow">this</a> grc reports my machine as stealth. Thanks for all you excellent advice.