Half of the Vista firewall feature will be turned off

Yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that it plans to turn off half of the firewall features in Windows Vista when the operating system version is released later this year.

According to the developer, their latest move comes from the view that most users do not need all the functions of the firewall or can set up management later.

Although the firewall system in Windows Vista is fully capable of filtering data in and out of the system, the information filtering feature will be turned off by default. But users can activate this feature if they want.

Microsoft has advertised heavily on Vista's better firewall than Windows XP with the ability to filter data in and out of the system. But now by default only the information filtering feature is enabled - that's exactly the same as Windows XP's firewall system.

The outbound filtering feature usually only appears in third-party firewall applications such as Symantec or ZoneLabs. This is a solution to prevent applications from accessing the Internet or preventing malware - such as spyware - from sending information out.

Analyst Peter Pawlak said that Microsoft had "taken a fairly logical step" when deciding to disable the ability to block outbound firewall information in Vista.

The reason why Microsoft decided to add data filtering functionality to Vista's firewall system is to help businesses block systems when they go beyond the scope of the business domain, said the analyst. career.

' There must be protection solutions to prevent laptop users from sending data. The firewall's ability to block the flow of information out of the box has this capability , 'Pawlak said.

Meanwhile Microsoft also allows users to be easily exposed to firewall issues. The data filtering feature of the Vista firewall will be quite similar to the one in Windows XP, Microsoft spokesman said.

But if users choose to enable filtering of data information sent out on Vista's firewall system, they will have to "comply" with the default rules that are included in Windows kernel services System Hardening.

Windows System Hardening is the name of a feature in Windows Vista that prevents critical Windows services from being allowed to change system files, Windows Registry or network like the case of malware installed. system and make modifications.

Hoang Dung