My improved review
Written: Aug 20 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Yes, it detects incoming traffic
Cons: Not instinctual to use
The Bottom Line: It detects incoming traffic, including attempts to activate the dirty little SubSeven trojan horse
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| randallw's Full Review: Macmillan BlackICE Defender Full Version for PC (1... |
I tried using a firewall from Norton, but it wasn't compatible with my DSL connection....after struggling with it for a few days I had it removed, then I installed BlackICE Defender; it's compatible, so that's at least one good thing about.
What's a firewall? A firewall is a program that detects ( and can block ) incoming traffic to your computer through the internet connection.
The program does seem to detect traffic that isn't proper, and gives info, but without knowing more about firewalls, the information given isn't worth that much....BlackICE will describe the attack on you ( such as an HTTP port probe ), time of the attack, the name of the attacker ( sometimes identified as a name, other times as a server number ), an IP address, a DNS address, and other info.
In the past few months the program has detected attempts to activate the SubSeven trojan program; luckily, I don't seem to have the SubSeven on my computer ( at least I don't THINK I do ).
SubSeven Trojan
The SubSeven trojan was designed in 1998. It is a program that allows people to control your computer. It does not come with your computer when it's bought; the program gets on your computer by being downloaded, usually through an e-mail attachment. Once the program is downloaded, it waits for someone to activate it. The activation is through a signal sent to your computer through the internet. Once the trojan is activated, the person ( 'attacker' ) who activated the trojan can now control parts of your computer; documents on the hard drive can be read; your address book of e-mail programs can be read; programs can be run; your clock time can be changed; many things that you can do with your computer can be done BY SOMEONE ELSE THROUGH THE INTERNET.
BlackICE has discovered some attempts ( through my connection ) to activate SubSeven; i've blocked each intruder, so they shouldn't be able to make another attempt from their same IP. I haven't notice anyone goofing with my computer, so I believe I don't have SubSeven on my system. Note: BlackICE does not detect the presence of SubSeven; it detects attempts to ACTIVATE it ( the attacker does not know if you have it or not ).
To find out if SubSeven is on your computer, use an anti-virus program with a recent virus list update.
The amount of computers invaded by SubSeven is considered 'small'; most of them being home-use computers without firewalls.
For more info on SubSeven, do an internet search for SubSeven trojan horse, recommended search engine is google.com; useful websites returned are sans.org, zdnet.com, and nsclean.com.
End SubSeven section
BlackICE has four classes of severity of the intrusions on your system: critical, serious, suspicious, informational.
Some parts of BlackICE Defender are intuitive; you can decide what kind of attacks you are alerted to based on their severity ( importance ), whether by a blinking icon or an audio warning....you can also select an attacker to be blocked, with a choice of time length available ( a day, week, month, or forever ).
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
randallw
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Location: CA
Reviews written: 148
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Yes! :-) They pay out
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