i'm also on xp so i dunno if i'll be much help
but have you checked its not the content advisor playing up
i seem to remember that happened to me a lot...*shrug*

Firewalls are what I do for a living (I've spent the last two days sitting in a room in one of Glasgow Uni's buildings doing precicely that) - though I'm not an expert on "personal" firewalls as they differ quite a bit from network boundary Firewalls.

What I can say is:-

Firewall = Good
No Firewall = BAD!

Your message isn't too clear. If your Dad has installed a personal firewall onto your PC, it shouldn't stop you from getting to certain sites.

But when you say certain sites, do you mean via a web browser?

Personal firewalls tend to work on a "per application" basis, so if it allows Internet Explorer to get to the Internet, that's exactly what it will do. It won't care if you are going to www.tangent21.com or www.bbc.co.uk. If this is the problem you are having, I would say that it's more likely a problem with your ISP connection than anything else.

If, however, you can browse the web but can't use IRC, then you may have something like a personal Firewall block that application. If that's the case, ask your Dad what he's installed and configure it accordingly. After that you should be fine.

The most common personal Firewall is ZoneAlarm (because it's free!). But if your Dad had installed that (unless he's locked down the configuration) it tends to notify you when you try to connect to the Internet using a program that it hasn't seen before. You can then say "Yes I want it to connect" or "No, I don't want it to connect" and it will remember that decision for the future.

Give us some more info and let's see what we can do...

its mainly lycos chat i can't get into, it jsut laods and doesn't stop loading, and i nkow other peoplewho can get in there fine. also a few sites its come up saying pages may not be displayed in full due to active x or something along those lines.

Aside from a Firewall has your Dad installed or modified your anti-virus product?

Some of these can be specifically configured to block Java & Active X applications.

we hacve a norton and pc cillin anti virus thing, he may very well have altered it and he doesn't nkow what hes doing half the time.

aha cheers gobstopper i owe you a beer, hes ticked loads of restricted access box things in pc-cillin the daft pilock.

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by gobstopper
What I can say is:-

Firewall = Good
No Firewall = BAD!

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Wise words there even on a dial up conection people still try to hack you.

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by JtB
(quotes)

Wise words there even on a dial up conection people still try to hack you.

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They certainly do!

Good to see that you sorted it Spike. As soon as I saw that you mentioned PC-Cillin, that it what I would have advised you to look at as I know that it has the capacity to stop sites with Java & Active X content from loading.

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by gobstopper
What I can say is:-

Firewall = Good
No Firewall = BAD!

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I prefer the fly by the seat of the pants approach. Have broadband with no firewall, win98, and run Apache and FTP, so my site is about as insecure as it gets. That said, havent been hacked yet AFAIK, but glad im not running ISS (ewwww), cos all the hack attempts in the apache logs are IIS vunerabilities..

If anyone ever did manage a semi-hack on my system it was when the apache logs got corrupted, and when MissKitty looked at them, they had HTML pages in the log contents. They contents were all pages of sites that neither of us had ever been on...weird.

Never consider yourself to be too unimportant to be hacked.

Apache can act as an open web proxy, and if someone runs a port scan they will find it and use it. It's not a hack as such, but the persons concerned will use it to access the type of sites we wouldn't discuss here and then tell their friends about it. The end result of that will probably be a severe reduction in available bandwith because they will be busy using your connection for you! In my line of work, I have seen this happen on a number of occasions.

I would also check your broadband contract. If you're on ADSL, you're probably OK. But I've seen some cable modem T's & C's (the NTL one springs to mind) and they basically don't want the connections to be used for any sort of hosting. If they they see too much externally-originated traffic heading in your direction they will cut you off - which is why I am resiting the overtures of the cable people and waiting patiently for ADSL.


(Edited by gobstopper 08/09/2002 09:58)

I notice there is an exploit with mod_ssl right now on apache..not running that anyway thankfully.

We do get port scanned all the time, but having left a sniffer running for some time, the amount of bandwidth used is negligble, we must not suffer badly.

As for the Tees & Cees, yeah, NTL prohibit running servers - not a big deal though, they turn a blind eye so long as you dont take the p**s.

If your web or ftp got completely hammered, im sure they'd let you know. I haven't used ADSL much, but right now am happy as larry with Cable Modem from NTL, its really great.

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by misskittyfantastic
As for the Tees & Cees, yeah, NTL prohibit running servers - not a big deal though, they turn a blind eye so long as you dont take the p**s.

If your web or ftp got completely hammered, im sure they'd let you know. I haven't used ADSL much, but right now am happy as larry with Cable Modem from NTL, its really great.

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Hmmm... that's interesting to know. I fear that DSL is not going to happen soon in my area, whereas NTL cable is available.


(Edited by gobstopper 20/09/2002 19:57)

That other MKF post was funkymonkey in case you hadn't already guessed..



(Edited by misskittyfantastic 20/09/2002 18:53)

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by misskittyfantastic
That other MKF post was funkymonkey in case you hadn't already guessed..



(Edited by misskittyfantastic 20/09/2002 18:53)

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LOL I thought you had gotton all technical on me for a mo hunny

We're thinking of getting BT broadband in our new house - can anyone recommend good firewall software?

Hmm, considering that I'm getting broadband fairly soon, I guess that I should look into some firewall software.

Windows XP has a Firewall built in, but it looks fairly basic, from what I have played with.

I have heard good things about Black Ice, but I haven't played with it yet.

XP seems to turn most stuff off by default. Can anyone advise?

Gobstopper perchance?

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by White Hart
We're thinking of getting BT broadband in our new house - can anyone recommend good firewall software?

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Are you sure you want BT broadband?

Lots of companys offer the same service (over the same cables) for less. Demon for example. Have you tried them?

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by Tycho
Are you sure you want BT broadband?

Lots of companys offer the same service (over the same cables) for less. Demon for example. Have you tried them?

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We've thought about it - it might make more sense actually seeing as Demon is already our ISP. But there's so much choice these days

There are problems using resellers for supplying cabling...

While people like Demon will use more than one TelCo (We carry some of there circuits, as do BT, and I'm sure NTL and Telewest probably do as well), and this gives you some resilliance, it also means multiple points of failure. If the issue is congestion, it can be hard to trace which TelCo (if it is only one) is at fault. Worst of all, your dealing with a team who have no ability to fix the issue. They take what you tell them and pass it to the TelCos, who will inevitably want call examples and generally more detail, which the Reseller can't provide, as they won't be able to ask each individual customer for the details.

While Resellers can be cheaper, their standard of service can be poorer than the TelCos. And the TelCos all have a pretty awful level of service...