Fortunately, most home firewall/routers can be set up to allow specific programs
and data to come into your network, to get to your computers. There are dozens of
common, everyday, run-of-the-mill games and special programs that you or your
family may want to enjoy with your friends and family elsewhere across the Internet
that will not work until you reconfigure your firewall to allow them to work. In many
ways, as you try to do more with your networked computers, you are discovering
Figure 11-2
Preventing your router
from responding to
basic ping inquiries
Configuring Firewall Protection for Your Network 77
how and why the networking and Internet does or does not work as advertised??”
sometimes you have to tell your computers and network equipment exactly what you
will or will not allow them to do or who they communicate with.
Many of us are starting to explore Internet-phone or Voice over IP (VoIP) services as
a way to avoid or reduce the costs of long-distance and overseas phone calls. Skype is
one of the better-known Internet-phone applications, but Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft
instant messaging services also provide a variety of user-to-user voice and video options.
For the full features of these applications to work, whether you use a Windows
PC, an Apple Mac, or a Linux computer, you need to instruct your firewall to allow
data specific to these applications to flow freely from the Internet into your computer.
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