Firewalls can be hard to uninstall. Spyware, adware, and hack attacks can try to alter or remove your firewall from your system, so firewall vendors make the programs stick to it.

The best way to remove a firewall is to use the Add Or Remove Programs feature in the Windows Control Panel because it triggers the firewall’s built-in removal process. If the Add Or Remove Programs feature doesn’t work, consult your users guide or vendor’s Web site to see if there are different ways to remove the software. For instance, you can remove certain McAfee programs, including the McAfee Personal Firewall Plus, with a program called the McAfee Removal Tool that you can download from www.mcafee.com.

Internet Connection Sharing is a Microsoft program that lets you share one Internet connection among many computers. Some firewalls turn it off when they install, along with connection sharing programs from any vendor.

One solution is to repeat the ICS setup. But first check with your firewall vendor; some make tools you can download to reestablish your ICS connection quickly. You can download the tools from the vendors’ Web sites.

Also be careful about the effects ICS can have on your firewall. Some vendors note that you can install their firewall on the ICS gateway and guard all computers that share its connection from malicious inbound traffic. But if you want to guard against outbound traffic, you’ll have to install the firewall on every ICS computer you want to protect.

Two things will keep you from using your firewall: The first is a faulty installation, which you can often fix quickly. The second is more worrisome. Spyware and other malware can turn off or completely kill your firewall as part of its plan to hijack your system.

If you think your firewall did not install properly, uninstall and reinstall it using the directions that came in your software’s users guide. On the other hand, if your firewall installed correctly and worked fine until you clicked a suspicious Web site or opened a specious email, use a spyware/adware detector to clean your system. Norton, McAfee, Zone Labs, and LavaSoft all make wellknown programs that can remove most but not all malware from your system.

You can also contact your firewall vendor to see if it offers a fix. For instance, McAfee’s firewalls can be attacked by spyware that very subtly edits the Windows Registry to disable it. It alters the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\SensLogn

to read as follows:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon_disable\Notify\SensLogn

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Sometimes your firewall will keep you from using a network resource, such as a printer or a document store, on your small or home office network. If your company gave you the computer and the IT department installed your network and firewall, it’s best to let someone from your company resolve this problem. You’re not passing the buck; you’re just being careful because you might change a setting that unwittingly opens your corporate network to attack.

If you’re using your own network and have more leeway to alter your software’s settings, you can fix the problem fairly quickly. If you’re using the built-in Windows Firewall, which is the software most likely to block a printer or file share, open the Windows Security Center by clicking Start and Run and typing wscui.cpl in the Open box. Then click OK.

In the Windows Security Center window, click the Windows Firewall link at the bottom, choose the Exceptions tab, and select the File and Printer Sharing option from the Programs And Services list. Click OK and close the Security Center window and reboot your computer. This will give you access to shares that were blocked, but there’s a catch: Using the File And Printer Sharing exception on any computer that’s directly connected to the Internet can give hackers access to the shared documents on your network. To guard against this, you can double-click the File And Printer Sharing option in the Programs And Services menu and click the Change Scope button in the Edit a Service dialog box. In the Change Scope dialog box, make sure that My network only is checked and follow the prompts to return to the Desktop and reboot your system.

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Most firewalls will show you an alert when a program tries to send or receive data over the Internet, prompting you to block the program, unblock it, or defer your decision. If you don’t see an alert, you’ll have to unblock the program directly.

The procedure varies slightly from program to program, but it’s largely the same. For instance, to unblock a program using the firewall in Norton Internet Security 2008, look for the Norton icon in the System Tray. The icon, which differs slightly from version to version, looks like a globe combined with a grid. When you’ve found the icon, double-click it to open the Norton control panel.

Next, click Personal Firewall and then Configure. Click the Programs tab. In the Manual Program Control section, Click Add and then browse to the program you’d like to add. Most programs can be found in C:\Program Files, the default location for Windows software. From there, just follow the prompts to return to the Desktop and reboot your system.

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A firewall keeps the bad stuff out and the good stuff in, but sometimes it can keep programs you need from sending and receiving the data they need to function. In that case, the program is said to be blocked. Often you’ll see a pop-up window explaining this and prompting you to unblock the program or continue to block it. For instance, if Windows Firewall has blocked a program, it will show you a message reading, to help protect your computer, Windows Firewall has blocked some features of this program. The message has three buttons: Keep Blocking, Unblock, and Ask Me Later.

If you know and trust the program that’s trying to send or receive data, just click the Unblock button, and the problem is solved. The Windows Firewall only blocks incoming data. Only third-party firewalls, such as the firewall in Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2007 or Internet Security Suite 2007, will block data from leaving your computer as well as invading it.

Keeping safe online can be explained in two easy steps: Keep the bad stuff out and the good stuff in. Firewalls can do both, which makes them a vital piece of software in today’s age of hack attacks, adware, and spyware of every kind.

A firewall is like a moat around your computer. It screens inbound and outbound traffic to determine if it should pass, keeping malicious code such as virus attacks from getting into your system and keeping private data from getting out when keylogging programs and other nasty codes try to steal it.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 comes with a built-in firewall called the Windows Firewall. But many notebooks and desktops come preloaded with third-party software from Symantec, McAfee, CA, Zone Labs and others. To see which firewall
you have, click Start and All Programs and look for the vendor’s name.

When the firewall stops working, so does your Internet connection or even your whole computer. But there are ways to fix it, and most of them are simple.

Who’s At Fault?

First things first. Before you get started, you need to know what’s truly causing your problem. Is it your firewall? Your ISP? Your phone line?

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