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Introduction
VirusMD Personal Firewall is the best defense against intrusion into your personal computer. It is powerful, easy to use and very responsive. Its award-winning, sleek design protects you and your family around the clock.
Why VirusMD Personal Firewall?
VirusMD Personal Firewall has been on the market longer than many other commercial firewalls. Its phenomenal success is due in part to its ease of use. Unlike many programs which are huge, complex and impossible to manage, your new VirusMD Personal Firewall starts protecting you as soon as you install and run it. It is easy for beginners to use, and it is powerful enough for the most advanced security experts.
Getting Started
The program comes with an easy to use installer and uninstaller. After installation, simply run virusmd.exe from the start menu or from the convenient shortcut on your desktop.
Features
Auto-protect on Startup
Since this was the most-requested for feature by our users, we have included it in the newest version of VirusMD Personal Firewall. By selecting "Auto-protect on startup" from the bottom of the main screen, your firewall can automatically start protecting you as soon as you start the program. You can toggle this option on or off. However, if your firewall is in protect mode when you turn on Auto-protect on startup, you will need to exit the program and restart it for the changes to take effect.
Blocked Ports List
This is another powerful feature that is unique to VirusMD Personal Firewall. Your computer has thousands of "ports," which are like doors to the outside world. Every time you surf the internet or use email, ICQ, instant messengers, FTP, telnet, etc., your computer opens one of these ports. Unfortunately, if you are accidentally infected with a trojan horse, the trojan will open one of these ports without your knowledge, allowing a remote hacker to control your computer.
Fortunately, you can easily block the port the hacker is using. VirusMD Personal Firewall allows you to enter up to 12 ports at a time. Then, just click the "Protect" button and you are safe. For help on finding which port a hacker is trying to use, read the section below titled "Port Scanner."
This feature is also very useful when new trojans are discovered in the wild. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) can issue a trojan alert, informing you of any new trojans and what port you need to block. This will allow you to patch a potential hole instantly, which is days or weeks before your anti-virus vendor can release a fix. For a list of recommended ISPs that are currently using VirusMD Personal Firewall to protect you, contact us at contact@virusmd.com. If your ISP is not currently providing this service for you, please email us at contact@virusmd.com and we will be delighted to help them get started.
Protect / Don't Protect
These two buttons on the upper right of the VirusMD Personal Firewall interface are the heart of the program. By clicking the "Protect" button, you activate the security of your firewall. VirusMD Personal Firewall will actively monitor up to 12 ports that you select, including negative ports that most modern firewalls miss. Clicking "Don't Protect" turns off this active monitoring. Whenver you change one of the 12 ports, you will need to toggle Protect off, then on again to activate the change.
You may minimize VirusMD Personal Firewall to the taskbar. It runs silently, protecting you and your family even while you sleep.
"Intruder Detected!"
When a hacker tries to enter your computer on a protected port, your firewall springs to life. An alarm claxon sounds, and a female voice chimes the phrase "Intruder Detected!" repeatedly. This new software version allows you to test the alarm for yourself.
A window also instantly opens on your desktop, displaying the attack. The hacker has been stopped! The most unique and interesting feature of VirusMD Personal Firewall is that you can specify a message of your choice to send back to the repelled hacker. You can do this by changing the text in the box titled "Message to be sent."
A favorite message for you to send is "your IP address has been logged and will be reported to the authorities." There are many other creative messages that our users have invented to deter hackers. We would love to hear yours at contact@virusmd.com.
Logging attacks
In the event that your firewall blocks an attack, the IP address and port of attack will be displayed in the "Intruder IP" window. This information is automatically saved to a log file in the program directory, which you can later retrieve to send to an ISP and law enforcement for investigation. Time of attack, port of attack and IP address of the intruder are all saved to this file.
Port Scanner
VirusMD Personal Firewall includes a next-generation, ultra rapid port scanner. By clicking the button that says "scan ports," the port scanner will let you quickly scan the thousands of ports on your computer and will tell you which ones are open. You can save a full scan log to the program directory (portcontrol.log) by clicking the "Save to Log" button on the port scanner.
When doing a complete scan, you will notice that several ports may be open. Do not panic! Many of these may be normally open. For example, your web browser uses port 80 (the "http://" port) to let you surf the web. Also, if your firewall is in protect mode, the 12 ports you are protecting will also normally show as being in use.
With time and experience you will become an expert at which applications run on which ports. Also, you can always ask for help on the User's Forum at http://www.virusmd.com.
Common Trojan Ports
To assist you in determining if a port is suspicious, we have included a list of common ports on which that trojans. Just click the "Common Ports" button on the VirusMD Personal Firewall interface to see the full list.
Application Killer
This is another unique feature of the VirusMD Personal Firewall. By pressing the button titled "kill applications", a handy interface opens. This tool allows you to display all processes currently running on your computer. It is useful when looking for suspicious programs running secretly on your computer. If you see a program that you want to terminate, simple select it and click "end selected task." This will terminate any program that you desire. Be careful not to terminate any important processes.
About
This button scrolls the credits for the VirusMD Personal Firewall. It will tell you the current version, copyright information, and where to get further help. ISPs and security companies who license the firewall for their users can have their personal information here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why should I pick VirusMD Personal Firewall over the others?
Most importantly, because it is easy to use. There are no complicated rule sets to configure. When you combine VirusMD Personal Firewall with a good, updated anti-virus scanner, you will be safe. If you would like a recommendation on which anti-virus software to use, just email us at contact@virusmd.com
Q. Can I run two firewalls at once?
A: Yes, if you desire. You should also run two different virus scanners on your computer, and update their DAT files every two weeks. If you would like a recommendation on which anti-virus software or other firewalls to use, just email us at contact@virusmd.com -- we will be happy to recommend some programs to you.
Troubleshooting
Problem: After uninstalling or registering, the unregistered program still loads at startup.
Solution: search your hard-drive for all occurrences of "vpfirewall20.exe" (without the quotes). Delete all copies of vpfirewall20.exe on your computer, then reinstall the full version.
Problem: I get a run-time error that says "Address already in use."
Solution:
Most of the time a run-time error that says "Address already in use" is because a port is being accessed by more than one application. This can occur when:
a. Trying to protect a port that is already in use. For example, if you enter port 80 (the http:// port) while you are surfing the internet with your web browser and then click the "Protect" button, you will get a run time error.
b. Toggling rapidly between the "Protect" and "Don't Protect" buttons, just for fun.
c. Running 2 copies of the firewall at once.
d. Various other conditions on your own computer.
The run-time error is an unfortunate occurrence in programs coded in Visual Basic. We are planning to fix this in the future by coding our next generation firewall in pure Assembly Language. However, that project is a good way down the road, and we feel that it is important to have this product available now for the public good. Fortunately, this firewall has been tested extensively, and the reviewers agree that it is quite stable. All commercial firewalls have some inherent flaws, but hopefully you will find that the VirusMD Personal Firewall is one of the best.
