Microsoft confirmed Thursday that it plans to turn off half the firewall in Windows Vista when the new operating system ships later this year because it doesn’t think most users need all the firewall’s functionality or can handle its management.
Although Vista’s firewall will ship with both in- and outbound filtering capabilities, the latter will be disabled by default. Corporate users, however, can turn on outbound if they wish.
A do-it-yourself malware creation kit is being hawked on a Russian Web site for less than $20, according to security researchers tracking the seedier side of the Internet.
Virus hunters at SophosLabs discovered the spyware kit, called WebAttacker, on a Web site run by self-professed spyware and adware developers. The kit is available for sale directly from the site, which even offers tech support to buyers.
Now that you know where to get free antivirus and free antispyware programs it’s now time to get to know the personal firewall programs that’s available for free on the Internet. Here they are in no particular order:
ZoneAlarm 6.0
ZoneAlarm 6.0 is a free personal firewall program that protects your computer against any type of unauthorized connections to your computer.
