MacBook Air Firewall?

[Appledreamer]

Hello Guys and Ladys

May i ask, i noticed my new macbook air came with the firewall turned off? if i turn it on does this slow it down? make the battery last less? why would they have it off and not on if its there to help?

i also had to install flash player for youtube. i take it it only uses this when it needs to, i am not going to suffer it being on and braining my battery etc.

i am away from the power a lot and i need max battery life any where i can get it.

Marko

 

[Weaselboy]

Turning on the firewall will not slow things down or hurt your battery life at all. I suspect they have it off by default because the FW on sometimes causes unsigned apps. to popup a warning asking if it is okay to accept Internet connection to the app, and Apple was concerned that would confuse people. Just a guess on my part.

 

[Appledreamer]

Turning on the firewall will not slow things down or hurt your battery life at all. I suspect they have it off by default because the FW on sometimes causes unsigned apps. to popup a warning asking if it is okay to accept Internet connection to the app, and Apple was concerned that would confuse people. Just a guess on my part.

Thank you for your answer.

Mark

 

[Mrbobb]

Turn it on and see what happens. I suspect you will soon turn it back off after so many WARNING <gasp> messages and u going whaaaa? what do I do about this?

The best firewall is NEVER CLICK anything you are unsure about AND keep good backups then if hell come loose, simply restore from backup (clean OS + data) and off you go.

 

[Appledreamer]

Turn it on and see what happens. I suspect you will soon turn it back off after so many WARNING <gasp> messages and u going whaaaa? what do I do about this?

The best firewall is NEVER CLICK anything you are unsure about AND keep good backups then if hell come loose, simply restore from backup (clean OS + data) and off you go.

i can report so far so good nothing has popped up, been surfing lots of sites and downloaded a few app and handbrake. etc

ill keep it on for a week and see how we go.

Thanks guys

any questions for me? Haswell i5/128gb/4GB over a week old now....

does everything i need it to do.

 

[techn0lady]

Worst. Advice. Ever.

 

[GGJstudios]

Turn it on and see what happens. I suspect you will soon turn it back off after so many WARNING <gasp> messages and u going whaaaa? what do I do about this?

The best firewall is NEVER CLICK anything you are unsure about AND keep good backups then if hell come loose, simply restore from backup (clean OS + data) and off you go.

Being careful about what you click on doesn't replace the need for a firewall. While your home or office router may have a built-in firewall, you should still activate the OS X firewall so you're protected when you're mobile.

 

[aristobrat]

i also had to install flash player for youtube. i take it it only uses this when it needs to, i am not going to suffer it being on and braining my battery etc.

If you use the Safari browser, some folks install the ClickToFlash extension.

To me, the "pro" of this extension is that when you surf to a website that has stuff written in Flash, those things won't run until you click on them. This can save you battery when you're visiting sites that have a lot of ads written in Flash that sit off the side of your screen (draining your battery) while you're reading whatever.

The "con" is that when you visit a site that uses Flash for navigation and stuff, you have to click to enable that part of the web page before it's usable. If it's a website you visit a lot, you can configure the extension to allows allow Flash.

 

[Mrbobb]

Worst. Advice. Ever.

LOL.

To be fair, I used to be network engineer and have a sixth-sense when something is not "right."

I do have an hardware FW at home, but clicking the wrong site won't save me would it.

Just last year before my firs Mac, I ran Windows for over 2 decades and never used the software FW nor any virus scanner, I felt they slowed down my Wintel machines, but that may not be the case with a Mac.

Anywhoo, once or twice each year I would feel something is "not right," pull out my disaster recovery backup and am back in business in 15 minutes. I don't want to know what happened, I don't have time to investigate, I just need to be back in business. I dunno, not everyone buy it, but it works for me dandy.

 

[etcher]

i can report so far so good nothing has popped up, been surfing lots of sites and downloaded a few app and handbrake. etc

ill keep it on for a week and see how we go.

Thanks guys

any questions for me? Haswell i5/128gb/4GB over a week old now....

does everything i need it to do.

Have you experienced any wifi issues with your new MBA?

 

[Appledreamer]

Have you experienced any wifi issues with your new MBA?

nope zero problems, i have had the macbook air on for over a week now with out restarting it it has not disconnected once, its a thing of beautiful engineering full signal all the time.

 

[racer1441]

I'd uninstall that Flash. It's horrible, sucks down battery,and doesn't help.

 

[Appledreamer]

I'd uninstall that Flash. It's horrible, sucks down battery,and doesn't help.

Ive installed click to flash, its great, only uses flash if you click it and stops flash ad on websites. i recommend it. my battery is fine, come on guys, HASWELL is great!!!!!! far better then last years, intel done well!!