Reviewing and Changing the Permission Status of an Application

Depending on the type of control that the Personal Firewall is under, you may or may not be able to change an application's access status.

What is Access Status?

Access Status is a set of rules that governs how many rights an application has in terms of having access your network connection or modem. Depending on what status is assigned to an application (or service) and how much configuration you apply to it, an application can either gain access to your network any time, under certain conditions, with your permission, or be blocked from gaining access to the network altogether.

The Personal Firewall provides the following type of access status:

An application with a status of Allow is permitted to have access to network connections. Under the Allow status, an application (or service) can be configured so that it can only access the network if using a certain port, or during certain hours.

When a new application attempts to access your network connection while you are under the default security setting (Normal), the Personal Firewall displays a pop-up window to ask if you want to allow the application to have access to the network because the application has a default access status of Ask. If you have not allowed or blocked an application, the Personal Firewall prompts you every time it tries to gain access to the network or modem.

An application with a status of Block is denied access to the network.

You have several choices when the application pop-up message is displayed as shown in the following table.

Firewall Application Access Status

If you click

If you check “Remember my answer...” box?

Your Personal Firewall will...

Yes

Yes

Allow the application.

Yes

No

Ask you if you want to allow the application.

No

Yes

Block the application.

No

No

Block the application this time, and in the future ask you if you want to allow the application.

If you select:

If you change your mind about the access status of an application, you can change its status from the Applications List.

To Change the Status of an Application

  1. Open the Applications List.

  2. Click on the File Name of the appropriate application until the row is highlighted.

  3. Right-click on the highlighted row.

  4. Click the appropriate access status (Allow, Ask, or Block) from the list.

  5. Click OK to close the Applications List.