SOFTWARE TITLE: Norton’s Personal Firewall 2002

PUBLISHER: Symantec

REVIEWED BY: Rose Miller

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS: Windows 98, 98se, ME, 2000 professional Workstation, XP, 150 MHz Pentium for 98 and ME, 300 MHz Pentium processor, 48-64 MB Ram, CD-Rom, Microsoft internet support.

I believe anyone who accesses the Internet, especially via cable, should have a firewall running. There are too many, let's say, not so honest people out there that are looking for a way into personal files, passwords, bank accounts and so on. A system without a good firewall is such an easy target. I know there are quite a few free downloadable firewalls out there. They may be ok for keeping an inexperienced or not so knowledgeable hacker out, but let's face it, you get what you pay for.

Norton Personal Firewall 2002 is a rule based firewall providing application control and intrusion protection. It's the most sophisticated and comprehensive firewall program available to protect against Internet threats without giving up usability.

The features of this potent firewall include, controlling all inbound and outbound connections between your computer and the Internet. Intrusion protection that has an autoblock feature that detects port scans and automatically blocks hackers from any more attempts to access your system. The application control protects against things like Trojan horses that attempt to download and launch without the your knowledge. The firewall will scan your programs as they are accessing the Internet. You can set rules for common applications to automatically access or deny Internet connection for greatest ease and control.

You can be assured that Norton Personal Firewall will keep all your personal information private. It filters only the information you choose to protect from unsecured web sites. You can be in control of how much or little of your information you want to reveal. It comes with a home network wizard, which automatically detects systems on your home network. This makes it a lot easier to set up.

There are alerts for applications that tell you what priority level the threat is which, in turn, allows you the option of permitting or denying access to the Internet. If there is something incoming or outgoing that you're not sure about, or is a high priority treat, you can just deny access. Better safe than sorry.

I also use Norton AntiVirus 2002. The firewall is programmed to work side by side with the anti-virus. They make very good companions and having no conflicts is a wonderful thing. Using LiveUpdate will keep the program up to date on any bug fixes, patches and compatibility issues.

After installation, you will notice a half globe icon that will be on the right side of your computer screen. This is the alert tracker. When an event happens that the firewall wants to report, there will be a brief flash of a message informing you of the event.

When I had the firewall all installed and configured, I wanted to see just how well it was working on my system. I went to an Internet site that probes and scans for your open ports. The site is called Shields Up. It is located at https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2. I turned it loose on my computer. The result...it told me that it could not even find any sign of my computer let alone any open ports to probe into. So that really sealed the belief that I already had that Norton's Personal Firewall was a great and dependable product.

My bottom line: you really need this firewall. It will be a really tough program to beat. For the price of around $50, why would you want to trust you personal info, bank accounts and computer files to others that don't offer nearly the quality and quantity of security.

EASE OF INSTALLATION RATING: 10

EASE OF USE RATING: 9

DOCUMENTATION: 10

OVERALL RATING: 9

REVIEWER INFORMATION: Rose Miller lives in Maine with her husband and two children. She works as a TV ad scanner. She enjoys reading, crafts and creating webpages and graphics.