What is the purpose of an outgoing firewall?

Answer 1

If your computer gets infected, the outgoing firewall will prevent that software from sending OUT.

Many firewall programs allow specific programs to have access to the internet. This is a great way to stop spyware, viruses and other threats.

But the firewall is your first line of defense. You should have an anti-spyware solution on your computer. I recommend that you go to http://www.download.com and get AD-AWARE and SpyBot Search & Destory. Install, run, update and scan your computer with both programs.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 2

I asked that question myself when I was looking for a better firewall than Windows. I found the answer at Comodo:
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/

I've been using it about a month now, and I really like it. I have the choice of what I let go out, and feel much safer about what's coming in. I also know that I'm better protected on my wireless broadband. It helped to beef up the security I already had.

Answer 3

I haven't heard of an "outgoing" firewall most firewalls are ingoing and outgoing, maybe your talking about a proxy server? Redirects all packets sent to the proxy and restrics certain ports and UDP's from entering the proxy..

Answer 4

firewalls block traffic. Traffic can flow in and out of your network.

Traffic flows out if your network when you make internet request in your browser, upload a file to another server, or use a ftp client to connec to to another server, or even if you have a game installed on your pc that has multiplayer option, you go out to the internet to connect to the internet games server.

Traffic flows back in to your network when pages are returned from the internet, or you are downloading a file from the internet, or sownloading a file through your ftp client, or the internet games server is sending back info on your multiplayer game.

Traffic flows on different ports. Imagine a port as different lanes, or roads that go into your router. When you are browsing on the internet you are using port 80 (http), if its secure (https) you are using port 443, if you are using ftp you use port 20 or 21, your game will be using a different port number like 1025 etc. You get the idea depending on what you are using you will be using different ports.

A firewall will usually allow you to block various traffic, depending on how complex the firewall is, will depend on what traffic you can block, for example you can block outgoing/ingoing traffic, block different ports, or block different ip's.

A firewall that is blocking all the common ports and only allowing certain ip's to access your system, would make your system appear invisible to anyone scanning the network looking for an open port.

For example say you wanted to share a file regularly with a bunch of friends, you could set up an ftp server and set your firewall to block everyone but your friends ip's (of course you would need to know what your ips's were for your friends). Mr. Malicious logs in to his home pc and starts to run his kiddie script that does a broadcast and looks for anyone with an open ftp port - his scan will pass right over you as your firewall blocks his requests, so he will not even know you are running an ftp server.

You can get both hardware based firewalls (dedicated boxes that function as firewalls - no they are not that expensive any more, they used to be, but now are commonly bundled with routers), or software based firewalls. software based firewalls can run locally on each workstation in your lan, or run through one workstation running firewall software that also acts as a proxy (all incoming and outgoing internet requests go through that workstation). You can get many free firewalls that you can run locally on your workstation, for eg ZoneAlarm.

The software based firewalls you pay for usually have more advanced options such as tweaking rules for individual ports, but the free ones are still good value for money, erm . .well they are free!

Answer 5

1- to stop your users from using services against company policy
2- to stop malicious programs from initiating out bound connections

Answer 6

firewalls make your pc "virtually" invisible to hackers or spybots.

Answer 7

You don't want your firewall to be bashful.

Answer 8

prevent malisious programs from contacting other computers

Answer 9

to make sure the information sent from your computer is going where it is supposed to.

Answer 10

for unwanted pop-ups, spams,.. it's some kinda protection so that "unwanted sites" will not open.. just like porn sites that open up even if you're not going to it's link