Is the third-party personal firewall dead?īack when having a personal firewall was new and exciting, most of us connected our single household computer to the cable modem, IDSN box, or (shudder!) telephone line that brought us internet connectivity. Most contemporaries of the early ZoneAlarm have fallen by the wayside. But almost all security suites and even a few nominally standalone antivirus tools come with a built-in firewall. Third-party firewalls typically do no more than the built-in when it comes to fending off outside attack they distinguish themselves in areas like program control and exploit defense.

Just a few years later, Windows XP appeared with the beginnings of a proper firewall, and firewall protection in Windows has only gotten better since then. But this heyday of the personal firewall didn’t last. Windows 98, then current, didn’t offer them much help. In those days, more than 20 years ago, the company had the unenviable task of educating the populace as to what the heck a firewall is, and why they should want one. Personal computer old-timers may remember the debut of the brash and colorful ZoneAlarm firewall, one of the first programs marketed as a personal firewall for consumers. How to Set Up Two-Factor Authentication.How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac.How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files.

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