Whats the difference between a firewall and antivirus software? thanks?

Answer 1

A firewall is a program that sits in between you and the internet, it analyses incoming and outgoing traffic to try to intercept threats to your security. It's mainly looking for hacking attempts. As long as your internet connection is open its like an open door to hackers. A good firewall will make your pc invisible to most hackers. If they can't see you they can't break in.
Its not foolproof, so an anti virus, an anti trojan, an anti adware and an anti spyware are your next line of defence. They scan everything on your system looking for malware ( malicious software) that is installed or running.
Some security programs have 'real time' scanning so also watch for changes as they happen, like a firewall does.

You need a number of different security programs to deal woth different problems. Here are some good freeware ones.

Answer 2

Firewall Vs Antivirus

Answer 3

Firewall And Antivirus

Answer 4

2

Answer 5

a firewall is a intrusion detection program,in other words it tells the computer what should be allowed in and out of your machine,it works by having exceptions,which are programs that are allowed to breach the firewalls defences,but too many exceptions will make your p.c at risk
anti-virus software works by using defenitions,these are images of viruses that are used during a scan to find infection,as a anti-virus program scans your machine it searches every file and checks the file against the defenitions,if there is a match,i.e a file contains a virus with a exact match to the defenition then it will appear as a virus on the scanner
the anti-virus will then either delete the file(recommended)or quarantine it,meaning it will be stored in a folder totally isolated from the rest of the computer,people use this function if they need to send the virus to a company like mcafee or avg,so they can investigate,but deleteing the virus is still the best course of action
some anti-virus programs will delete the infection during the scan,and some will wait until the end of the scan and delete them all together
all anti-virus programs update automatically,so that they allways have the latest defenitions,you should never turn off the auto update function in the anti-virus as this would a)put your machine at risk and b)if you have service pack 2 it would give you a message all the time saying"your computer is at risk"
many users worry about anti virus protection but "spyware "is just as big of a risk and you should have at least 1 anti-spyware program installed,i recommend spybot ,a free program avalible from http://www.safer-networking.org/,this is very good at finding spyware and cleaning it,it also protects your p.c from future attack by using real time protection
i hope this has helped you understand a bit more about security software
good luck

Answer 6

It all depends on what you do with your computer. If you do a lot of downloading and surfing I would suggest at least an anti-virus and spyware program. The big different between a suite and just an anti-virus is the extras that come with the suite. You usually have a firewall, spyware program and a restore function within it. If you don't need all these bells and whistles, stick with just a straight anti-virus. A suite will most likely slow down your PC. Best way, get your own firewall and anti-virus.

Answer 7

A firewall acts like a barrier to keep people from sneaking into an opening in your computer's access points to view or alter your computer's contents.

Antivirus software locates, disables and/or removes miniature computer programs called viruses that can mess up or destroy your data.

Answer 8

A firewall is a "filtering" device. This filtering can be either built in or user defined. It controls incoming traffic usually by "rules" created by the firewall admin. to prevent invasive probing and attacks to the servers, PCs and other devices on your local or wide area network. It can also control or regulate the outward bound traffic from your internal network to sites outside and prevent access to sites not considered appropriate by the network management decision makers. It also has the abililty to trap and record attempts which may violate the rules set up on the particular firewall and provide reporting for these types of infractions.

Antivirus software is usually a scanning software with a subscription service that provides the scanner virus definitions allowing it to search files, incoming, outgoing, and stored on hard drives and other storage devices which can be potentially hazardous to your internal network or PC. These include boot sector viruses, hidden proxy servers, and a whole host of other bad critters which can basically self replicate onto virtually any data storage device. The subscription service attempts to identify and provide "virus signatures" which help the scanner identify specific named viruses. Some virus scanners also can search for "suspicious" file types which may have familiar virus patterns, even if they aren't known viruses.

Answer 9

a firewall is a piece of hardware and/or software which functions in a networked environment to prevent some communications forbidden by the security policy, analogous to the function of firewalls in building construction. AND Аntivirus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software

Peace'

Answer 10

A firewall specifically is used to monitor network traffic, particularly traffic from the internet to your PC and vice versa.

An antivirus program monitors activity on your PC (such as opening files and programs, or processes already running in the background). An antivirus program is not enough by itself to protect you, especially if you have a high-speed internet connection.