Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[delphinium Norton Fighter]

For anyone who has ever had a question about the default firewall rules, this explanation is fantastic.  It not only gives a user a better understanding of what is happening in their computer, it is also a valuable troubleshooting tool.  Thanks Symantec!

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sunset-c2002kb.nsf/672c231f89ff479085256ee600556cc3/ade2747ea2a...

[Stu]

Thanx for posting, interesting info indeed

[NY1986]

good info

for clarification when they reference other computers are they speaking of computers within one's network or computers out on the WWW  ?

[delphinium Norton Fighter]

Hi NY1986:

The rules take some careful reading.  Most of them can apply to both instances depending on the situation or network (which can be local or internet).  The rules are most useful when you have a particular problem that you are troubleshooting.  If you are unable to share a local printer you have an idea of what rule to look at.  If you are unable to connect to the internet the issue will be reported in your history describing the rule blocked.  At that time you can decide what to do about it.

The information in your history will tell you what was blocked and what rule was implemented, if the block had to do with a firewall rule.  Look the rule up on Google for more information on what it does and why.  There is lots of information available.

[j2000]

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delphinium wrote:

For anyone who has ever had a question about the default firewall rules, this explanation is fantastic.  It not only gives a user a better understanding of what is happening in their computer, it is also a valuable troubleshooting tool.  Thanks Symantec!

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sunset-c2002kb.nsf/672c231f89ff479085256ee600556cc3/ade2747ea2a...

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Thanks  for the article - some good info there.

However, Norton needs to update the links at the bottom of that page you mentioned - at the time of this writing, there is a link there that says:

"For instructions on how to back up the firewall rules, read the document  How to back up the Norton Internet Security or Personal Firewall program options and firewall rules."

Unfortunately,  clicking their link results in the message:

"An error has occurred in the Symantec Knowledge Base. You may have: accessed a document which is no longer available, attempted to open an invalid document OR ... there could be a temporary problem."

It's unlikely to be a "temporary problem" because it's been like that for the last couple of days. I'm guessing it's more of a "document which is no longer available" problem.

Whiny off-topic complaint:  If Norton wants to remove useful functionality from their programs, such as the ability to back up firewall rules, I guess that's their prerogative, but it would be nice if they'd remove Knowledge Base links to articles about it that don't exist anymore. Yeah, I know, there are probably a zillion articles and 14 zillion links,  so maybe it's hard for Norton to keep track of them all, so I shouldn't be so critical. It's just that at first I was delighted to finally think that I had a way to back up my numerous firewall rules, only to find out that it isn't so, after all. Oh well.

Anyway, all that side, thanks delphinium for posting the article.