Free firewall?

[mystycalchyk]

Problem:

My mother is 3000 miles away, and trying to explain things to her over the phone about the computer is a nightmare
She is getting hacked.
She has no firewall
I need to send her a link via email for a free download firewall program that is idiot proof for a 68 year old NON computer literate old lady, but is very good.


Suggestions?

[Lani]

Suggestions?

Buy her a Mac.

[mystycalchyk]

Buy her a Mac.

next?

[SallySkellington]

I think Microsoft has a free firewall in Service Pack 2. I don't know how easy it is to install, though.

[Andrew]

Windows XP SP 2 includes a reasonably decent firewall. It's enabled by default when you install SP 2. Tell her to go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and install everything it offers, and keep doing it until it says she's up to date.

[Dementia]

Windows is okay but try zonealarm.com ... that one is what all my tech geek friends use.

[JeffG]

Buy her a Mac.

Why? That wouldn't solve the problem.

-Jeff

[Hakuna Makarla]

I had zone alarm, that before I knew I had a firewall on xp and it caused my computer to go at a crawl, I found out I had a firewall thru windows xp,only after a year of having it and when I got rid of zone alarm my computer ran fast again. I have dsl so running slower then dial up was horrible.

[Bill Catherall]

Karla - There was probably a conflic between ZoneAlarm and the XP firewall. You can't be running both at the same time and the XP firewall is turned ON by default.

mystycalchyk - Is your mom using WinXP? If so, the XP firewall should be good enough. It will just have to be set up correctly. If not, ZoneAlarm is great. I've used it for years running Win98 with no trouble at all. It's easy to install too.

[Opus1guy]

I use the free version of Zone Alarm and it works great.

http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/fre...55_094_000.exe

[mystycalchyk]

mystycalchyk - Is your mom using WinXP?

I'm not sure. I'll have to find out. I hired a geek to come to her house for her Christmas pressie to get her all set up and running. Im a bit annoyed he didnt set up a firewall for her. *sigh*


BTW 'geek' is what he called himself His business is called "Geek Computer Systems"

[Bill Catherall]

What leads you (or your mother) to believe she's being hacked?

[mystycalchyk]

She gets messages when she's shutting down saying 'X number of users still accessing the system" (???) or something. She's not really clear when she's trying to explain it to me. I have given up trying to help her over the phone. It one time took me several months to get her to understand how she had minimized her taskbar into non existance and how to get it back again.

But with her having DSL and no firewall (that I'm aware of) she really needs one regardless

[Bill Catherall]

Is she using any peer-to-peer file sharing software? Or she may have unknowingly downloaded some spyware that's causing that error, or even sharing files. It may require much more work than just installing a firewall.

However, the nice thing about ZoneAlarm (should you go that route) is that it not only protects against outside attacks, but it will prevent internal "broadcasts." It will only allow approved applications access to the internet. So if she has spyware it can be denied access to the internet. Whenever software tries access the internet it will ask for permission. For frequently used software like a web browser or email you can set it to remember the permission so it doesn't ask every time.

[Andrew]

She gets messages when she's shutting down saying 'X number of users still accessing the system" (???) or something.

That message appears when a file, folder, or printer is set to "shared" and at least one remote connection is active. Does she have more than one computer in her house?

[mystycalchyk]

She does not. And as far as I am aware she has never done any file sharing. I dont thin kshe would even know how.

I sent her the link so she could use zone alarm. PLus Im going to call the geek again I think for mothers day. Just to be 100% certain.

[Opus1guy]

It one time took me several months to get her to understand how she had minimized her taskbar into non existance and how to get it back again.

Oh. I can feel your pain. Have lots of friends and family that can hardly turn on their computers.

May not be practical in every case, but where ever possible (and ideally if they have high-speed internet), I get them upgraded to Windows XP so that they can use the Remote Assistance feature. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread when it comes to helping technology impaired friends and family!

When they're having troubles, they just "invite" me to access their computer and I get their desktop and total control of their machine, right on my laptop no matter where I am in the world. That way I can fix problems they have without doing the extremely painful and time consuming experience of trying to walk them through some basic steps over the telephone.

It's kind of weird at first to see someone else's desktop on your computer, but I'm telling you that once it's set up, it's a snap. From their end they just sit and watch their screen as their cursor moves magically around by remote control, as I go about checking things out and fixing things.

Some initial instruction on sending the "invite" and making sure their firewall is set to allow Remote Assistance to pass through is required. But once that little bit of setup is done, I find it's fairly easy for them to learn how to do "invitation" part.

And I might add that on several occasions, I'm the one that needs help and is doing the invite!

[Hakuna Makarla]

Karla - There was probably a conflic between ZoneAlarm and the XP firewall. You can't be running both at the same time and the XP firewall is turned ON by default.

mystycalchyk - Is your mom using WinXP? If so, the XP firewall should be good enough. It will just have to be set up correctly. If not, ZoneAlarm is great. I've used it for years running Win98 with no trouble at all. It's easy to install too.

your right Bill, I never knew I had a fire wall with xp I was running so slow I could hardly get onto mouse plantet at all, I finally found out I had the fire wall and got rid of zone alarm. its a great program, I just did not need it. I put it on moms though thanks

[Bill Catherall]

That way I can fix problems they have without doing the extremely painful and time consuming experience of trying to walk them through some basic steps over the telephone.

I used to work help desk support for corporate clients who paid for our tech support. Every machine we supported had client software similar to Remote Assistance (this was back in 1998) installed so we could do just that. Whenever someone had a problem we would first remotely take over their computer, then have them try to describe the problem. In most cases I had the problem fixed before they even finished telling me what's wrong. It's a real sanity saver.