I use Sunbelt Personal Firewall, which seems to do its job OK. However, every so often I get a dialogue box labelled "Outgoing Connection Alert" which warns me that Google Toolbar Notifier is trying to communicate with a remote computer. It asks me to permit or deny but how do I tell? It gives the remote port but that doesn't help much.
So do I permit or deny or how do I decide?
Do you trust Google Toolbar Notifier, and do you know why it wants to connect out? If so, allow it.
If not, uninstall the app.
The point is that it asks me to make a choice of permit or deny and I don't have enough information to do this. If it automatically allowed or disallowed I would trust it to make the right choice. In practice I tend to permit and wait to see if any nasties appear but that is a risky strategy.
You are very trusting.
Yes, *very* risky. Better / safer strategy is to deny - but do not check the 'remember this answer' box - and see if you can still do whatever you want / need to do. Then when you reboot and it asks you again, re-deny, after a day or three, if everything is still working, then - and only then
- check the 'remember this answer' box when you click deny.
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