Both of them allow you to block malicious programs before they start, they monitor your PC for any program connecting to other locations. This means that if you’re hit with an exploit from an email or anything like that, Zonealarm can help stop the program in its tracks before you’re even infected. Now, some exploits can bypass zonealarm and comodo, but it’s rare, and no matter what you’re running at that point you’d be infected anyway.

For basic security, I always recommend people run either ZoneAlarm or Comodo along with NoScript on Firefox. As I mentioned in previous posts, reading over your email very carefully and verifying links is something you should always do. It gets pretty easy to see which ones are phishing/exploits/malware once you’ve seen enough of them. They play new tricks a lot but they’re still easy to spot once you get the hang of it.

Anyway, ZoneAlarm gets an A+ rating from me, it’s something that truly can protect you if you use it wisely. If you don’t read over the prompts at all and properly configure Zonealarm, things might not be protected as much as you’d want.

Anyway, give Comodo or Zonealarm a try and see which one you like the most. Either one will protect you very well when used correctly.

Some of these tools are legitimate for companies to monitor employees or a school monitoring students, others aren’t.

Some are installed without a users knowledge and try to bypass firewalls, antivirus, and hide themselves as best possible. These RATs are usually setup to steal personal information which is then sold online. Programs that are setup to make botnets may also be referred to as trojans, as they too steal personal information, but they are mainly used to do click fraud, DDoS attacks and other tasks.

Anything that is sending information from your computer is pretty easy to detect no matter what, though it may have bypassed your software firewall you should be able to see the traffic with a network sniffer or through your router. Since most people’s computers do very little uploading it can be very obvious what the culprit is and even the IP address the data is being sent to.

Okay, well anyone ever receive links that go like this www.[big site like google].something.something.tld ? Well, in the past I have been able to avoid these links, but yesterday I was pretty tired and randomly clicked a link like that. Never click links that look like that, they are generally shock sites or do something damaging to your computer. Mine was specifically youtube.on.nimp.org/watch?v=Zll_jAKvarw. (DO NOT GO HERE UNLESS YOU ENJOY FIREFOX VIOLENTLY SHAKING AROUND AND GRAPHIC SHOCK IMAGES) It’s the first time I ever fell for that trick, but be advised that these exist. I have had friends IM me about receiving links like this asking me if it’s a virus or similar, so I know not everyone knows about these type of sites, and I just want to get the word out a little more.

Always scan links, no matter what site you’re on, these type of links may be posted and disguised as true links. Hover your mouse over any link you see and check to make sure it is a legitimate link. Internet trolls love to post these kinds of sites. Avoid them.

If you still end up on one of these sites, kill FireFox or whatever browser you’re using with either killall or ctrl-alt-delete end process. (Yes, it works on any OS just so long as you have a vulnerable browser, apparently it has never been fixed by Mozilla)

Want to see some reactions to going to on.nimp? Check this video out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kui6cCu6tfA (This is a real youtube link ) I knew exactly what it was so my reaction wasn’t near as interesting. Basically I went to the site, then I killed firefox, with no facial reaction or anything like that.

I kind of laughed at myself afterwards though, even me knowing everything about troll tricks on computers, still ended up getting trolled. Everyone’s human, right?

Here’s the real kicker, Comodo is free! ZoneAlarm Pro is not. The regular ZoneAlarm doesn’t come with nearly as many features as the free version of Comodo does. I think I have just found my new favorite software firewall and antivirus. Anyone not running something like ZoneAlarm or Comodo needs to go get one of the two now. No matter how savvy you think you are, there are a lot of strange things on the internet that could trick you, and Comodo or ZoneAlarm will block such things.

In conclusion, Comodo gets my vote now, ZoneAlarm is good, but I don’t think it’s as good as Comodo even in the “pro” version.

These are the best things you can do to secure your website properly

• Use random generated passwords 32-64 characters in length.
• Research your particular software and/or plugins for vulnerabilities at all times by visiting milw0rm and packetstorm on a regular basis.
• Optionally, you may want to install some kind of spam filter if possible on your software.

Own your server? You’ll probably want to do this as well, on top of the list above.

• Do periodic software updates on your server, change the ports that certain services run on, such as FTP and SSH since these are common targets.
• Disable root login.
• Set ServerTokens to “Prod” in Apache.
• Run software that automatically bans an IP after a certain amount of failed login attempts.
• Again, for all passwords on the server use 32-64 char random generated passwords, including the host control panel if you have one.

Just searching around reveals to me that there are far too many insecure websites out there, that could easily enough become fairly secure by following at least some of these methods. You can never be too secure, there are new vulnerabilities found every day, and there is no shortage of malicious users out there ready to deface your website or gain root login to your server for the fun of it. There are many more tactics out there for security, but these are some of the better tactics that will deter most people. Be careful out there.

Thanks go out to nukeit.org