what "is firewall"?

Question

how do turn this off inorder to get youtube as suggested by many Y!A users

Answer 1

Protection. Contrary to other answers, it is NOT an anti-virus item. It is a hardware or software item that sits bewteen you and theinternet and defendsyour network.

Afirewall can do many things including preventing unwanted network traffic into your machine, preventing certain machines on your network from accessing certain sites, allowing certain ports to be exposed to the internet, and much more.

If you're having trouble getting to Youtube, we'd need to know what that trouble is. You don't wantto disable or remove your firewall, but maybe you need to change a configuration in it.

Answer 2

A firewall is like a gateway. It prevents unauthorized acces to your computer from a local area network or the internet. It also prevents programs to connect to the internet without your approval.
A firewall may prevent you to connect to some sites and that is due to misconfiguration.

To really answer your question, to turn off a firewall(wich I strongly NOT suggest) you need to go to it's configuration console and "turn off firewall". Almost every firewall has it's conf. panel in the system tray. If you only have windows firewall, go to Control Panel -> Windows Security Center and turn it off ther. I remind you, it is dangerous to turn off the firewall!

Hope this helped!
~Reddo

Answer 3

A firewall stops harmful viruses taking over your computer. If you can't get onto Youtube with it, I'd advice not to go on youtube - there is something your firewall doen't like on there.

However, some firewalls have controls to disable certain sites - make sure youtube isn't blocked.

Answer 4

A firewall is a program which is developed with the specific purpose to protect your computer. This will include blocking hackers, virus attacks, etc. This differs from an antivirus, as an antivirus does not offer realtime protection, it simply scans your computer. Firewalls and antiviruses are usually updated via the internet as well. A firewall may also prompt you whether to allow a certain program to access th internet.

Answer 5

Yo Curios
the firewall is a program that is set into your system to act as a "gateway" into your system that can be regulated to allow or disallow traffic by way of the settings that you have made there (or that have been set by default BY your system)

You might look at it as a kind of "faucet" that can be turned on and off on the individual program or internet service basis !
It is NOT a good idea to turn the Program off however -- because it makes your system EXTREMELY volnerable to all kinds of nasty little things like hackers and unwanted traffic !!!

Answer 6

A firewall is like your front door..it stops intruders from coming in....if someone knocks then you can decide whether to let them in or not.
It is the same for your computer.
Simple as.
If you don't lock your door then you'll be robbed by some scally

Answer 7

The door porter analogy is not bad and there are many right answers already... but how to answer this without going geek...

From the nature of your question, I suspect you are not one (a geek :) that is).

A firewall decides what is allowed to connect with your computer. Why? Because the Internet is a potentially dangerous place. Why? Because there are people who have malicious/criminal intentions, and you can be a victim if you are not protected.

What malicious/criminal intentions?

Everything from harmless jokes and pranks (though non-the-less tiresome), to identity theft and wanton damage.

When you are not connected to the internet, you control what your computer does, by giving it instruction normally using the keyboard and mouse. Nobody else has access (unless they can sit at your computer).

When you are connected to the internet, you make your computer available to anyone else who is connected to the internet unless you so something to prevent it. If the world was full of nice considerate people, then this would not be an issue, but unfortunately it's not, and there are many very nasty people out there...

So what about the firewall? The purpose of the fireall is to control what is allowed to pass between your computer and the internet. Obviously, you want to be able to connect with the internet (browse web sites etc), but you do NOT want anyone to be able to connect to your computer, unless it is safe and necessary. However, for everything to work, it is necessary that your computer can be connected to from the internet for a variety of reasons. What you want is to stop any dangerous stuff from connecting. This is the primary job of the firewall.

While the principle is a simple one, the practice is not so straightforward. The act of defending your computer from dangerous intrusion can also prevent your computer from working, and as with many things, there are many depends.

Remember there is only one 100% sure fire way to be protected, and that is to disconnect yourself from the internet, but that is hardly a solution ;)

Configuring firewalls is not a user friendly experience on the whole, because there is no consistent single industry standard, though the principles are the same. How you manage your firewall will depend on the technology that you are using, and will involve issues such as NAT, Ports, and other funky stuff.

A good firewall will usually be configured to allow the most common needs by default, but there are many situations where this may not work in every instance. Good firewall will present you with some sort of dialogue where it gives you some details about the issue, and ask you for a decision. The problem will be whether you understand what the question is, and I would imaging most users will not be familiar with this sort of thing.

A good rule of thumb is "if in doubt, don't", but what to do when something doesn't work (i.e. the issue youtube as mentioned by the questioner). In fact, how do you know if it is your firewall or not that is causing the problem?

But you would be foolish to connect to the internet without a firewall! (and anti-virus/anti-spy/malware). Seriously! So never turn your firewall off except for the briefest of periods, and even then you will be at risk, and if you haven't got one, then get one asap!

So, the issue boils down tot he fact that there are people on the interent who want to get at your computer. The most common reasons are to get information. Some of it is benign, but some is very dangerous. A benign reason would be to get information about web sites you visit. This could be used by services to tailor what is available more personally. A malicious intent would be to grab the user names and passwords you use and such things as your credit card details etc is you use the internet for online shopping for example. Some just to damage your system. There are many others.

For myself, I do not want anything I do to be 'tracked', so I tend to lock down pretty hard. The down side of that is that I have to tweak often and clean up often in order to keep such a severe regime, but that's the price I am prepared to pay.

Where I don't want to go in this question is to try and give specific solutions, as I said before, there are different firewalls and different situations. If we take the youtube illustration, IF it is the firewall that is 'blocking' that site, then the principle is to get the firewall to allow that, and ONLY that, to be able to access your computer. I would have thought that the support guys at youtube or any user forums etc would be able to point you in the right direction. However, I have never had any problems with youtube, and I have 2 firewalls (hardware and software) policing my connection, so what is it specifically that you cannot get?

A final word of caution. If you switch your firewall off, you are inviting attack. The attacks are not just made by people, but by robots (computers) which trawl the internet 24x7 looking for unprotected systems. Eventually, yours WILL be hit, and you may know nothing about it. What the damage will be will depend, but it is not worth the risk.

However, you could do a quick test to see if it is your firewall that is the problem by switching it off for a VERY SHORT PERIOD. If whatever was a problem then works, then you could say that it is the firewall. The solution would then be to change the firewall configuration to allow it work, but don't assume it is your firewall that causes problems, and if you do switch it off, then do so for the shortest period you can.

How to switch off your firewall? That depends on what firewall you are using...

Answer 8

A firewall is a form of protection that acts like a wall in real life.
Picture data flowing through it and viruses getting left outside and burned up by the wall.
To turn one off (very much not a good idea try google video before you do) go into control panel and go into windows firewall. You can find your way from there easily.

Answer 9

a big wall with fire all over it......or in computer terms.....

A firewall is a system that secures a network, shielding it from access by unauthorized users. Firewalls can be implemented in software, hardware ...

Answer 10

A firewall stops other people from getting into your system and messing it up. You need that firewall. It shouldn't stop utube.
Maybe you need to configure it.
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