New Features Of Vista’S Firewall Part 1

Desktops sit still, but laptops are consistently moving. Obvious? Sure, but it still needs to be said because it’s this mobility that makes portable systems vulnerable to new environments like an airport or Starbucks Wi-Fi connection. With the Windows Firewall, you can configure rules based on profiles that relate to three category settings:

1. Domain—For when your computer is connected to an Active Directory domain.
2. Private—For when a computer is connected to a network that has a private gateway or router.
3. Public—For when a computer is connected directly to the Internet or to a network that isn’t considered a private network or a domain.
4. The Vista Firewall is network-aware in the sense that it can determine based on the network (domain, private, public) the settings necessary to help protect the user for any given situation. Although that takes the lion’s share of the workload off your shoulders, you are the one who needs to configure the policy that will be applied after the category network you are on is determined.
5. Obviously, the more vulnerable the situation (such as a public Internet connection), the more strict the policy should be.