Looking for Basic Firewall Advice, Please

[BeeS4335]

I'd be very grateful for advice on OS X Leopard Firewall settings. I'm a recent switcher/newbie. At the moment, by default, System Preferences>Security>Firewall is set to Allow All Incoming Connections. What I'm trying to achieve is an active Firewall (not sure that's the case on my machine at the moment) set to a medium level of security. Questions: is the Firewall automatically on? If I opt for Allow Only Essential Services, do I prevent access to run of the mill, day to day web pages - on-line banking, newspapers, train timetables and so forth? I'd be very glad of any guidance. Actually, just to know I have an active Firewall would be enough.

 

[ert3]

by defualt your mac is protected.

yes if you allow only esential services you will block web browsers and instant messengers.

Unless you have special needs there is no reason to tamper with the firewall.

And yes it is always on and functional

 

[merl1n]

I'd be very grateful for advice on OS X Leopard Firewall settings. I'm a recent switcher/newbie. At the moment, by default, System Preferences>Security>Firewall is set to Allow All Incoming Connections. What I'm trying to achieve is an active Firewall (not sure that's the case on my machine at the moment) set to a medium level of security. Questions: is the Firewall automatically on? If I opt for Allow Only Essential Services, do I prevent access to run of the mill, day to day web pages - on-line banking, newspapers, train timetables and so forth? I'd be very glad of any guidance. Actually, just to know I have an active Firewall would be enough.

If you are connecting to a home router that does NAT translation (almost all wireless routers do) and you have setup security (WEP, WPA, etc) on it, then your router will act as a firewall. You can also do port forwarding for specific programs to run.

If you use the built in Firewall on the Mac, you will have to add whatever programs you need to run and their corresponding port numbers. I don't use it myself as I use my router for firewall protection.

 

[ert3]

You can generaly assume you are better protected because it is a unix system.

Its much more difficult to trick and file security prevents remote hackers from subverting your security measures.

typically unless an app is using a certain internet port intrusion cannot occur.

though if you really are paranoid you can use programs like Paranoid Andriod to work around the theoretical leaks in security