What is a Firewall

I'm writing this for the novice so please excuse any over simplification.

For some reason, a bunch of people find it amusing and enjoyable to mess with the security of your computer, even steal information or all around make it a useless hunk of metal. Viruses and spyware for example require a user to do some type of action so that the virus or spyware becomes active, be it download and install a certain program that has spyware attached to it, or open an email attachment that lets a virus run wild on your computer. Some threats however don't need a user to do anything. It's simply an outside user or program that tries to access your computer when you are connected to the internet and this can occur at any time whether you are at your computer or out for the week but still connected. This is where a firewall comes in.

All a firewall does is controls what information is allowed in and out of your computer. It's a wall between your internal network or single computer and the outside world, or the rest of the internet. A quick example: you probably want to send and receive emails from friends and play online games. A properly installed firewall will recognize the information that is trying to go in and out of your computer and will only allow this information to pass while if at the same time, an online gamer or any unwanted, outside source is trying to send you some type of information be it a virus, or retrieve information from your computer, the firewall will block this type of transfer automatically. It's your computer's personal bodyguard only letting the ones you want into and out of the party in a sense.

If you are looking for a firewall, we recommend taking a look at our homepage where we have ratings and reviews for the top antivirus software currently available, most of which come with a built in firewall.