Sharing Printers with a Firewall

Hello,

We have a two-computer home network linked by a Linksys Cable/DSL 4 port router. Our operating systems are Windows XP Home version. No one in the family is very technical. When we turned on the Microsoft Windows Firewall, one computer could not use the shared printers. With the firewall option off, we have attracted MANY spyware and trojan programs to the computer. One computer is running at a crawl.

QUESTION 1: Do we need to buy a hardware firewall to keep the computers more secure and yet continue sharing the printer? Or will the software programs allow us to share the printers?

I've tried BPS Spyware/Adware remover, which found over 411 infected files in one computer and removed about half of them. Unfortunately, we had tried to disable some of the programs before, so I think we've got a bunch of stray files that may be hard to remove now.

QUESTION 2: What's our best next step for removing junk from our computer?

Thanks for any help!

All the best,
Mary Greene

 

Hi Mary

Could you follow the steps outlined in this link

www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=15913

And 1 of our experts will assist you further

also BPS Spyware remover, (if memory serves me right) is a hacked version of SpyBot (without any permissions from PepiMK)
www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

SpyD

 

Hi Mary

Did you turn on XP's ICF on both PC's? The built in firewall could have an impact on file and printer sharing, but I do not use XP and am not familiar with ICF.

With the XP ICF tuned off on the pc, you would still be protected by your router from unsolicited inbound connections.

Your Linksys router will protect the home network (LAN) and file/printer sharing from the outside (WAN - Internet). So you do not need to buy a separate hardware firewall. A software firewall on the pc's on the LAN would allow you to control what communications they are allowed and what programs can access the Internet.

Follow SpyD's link and then post to the adware, spyware & hijack cleaning forum. You might also want to make sure your Anit-Virus is up to date and run a thorough scan as well.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

Dear SpyD and Crazy M,

Thank you so much for your replies. If I understand correctly, my router is protecting me from hackers, but I'll need to download a spyware remover and follow the process outlined in the other forum to get rid of the junk.

Is there any reason to buy an additional software firewall? Do they just protect me further from hackers?

Crazy M, if ICF is the same as the XP firewall, yes, I did turn off the XP firewall option on both computers. Clearly, I don't understand firewall software, but I didn't see a way to keep the XP firewall up and keep sharing the printer. I assume that other software firewalls allow you to keep shared resources working.

Thank you for telling me that BPS may be a rip-off of Spybot. I had downloaded Spybot earlier, but it's so hard to know what to delete with the program. For instance, I want to keep my Alexa toolbar, if possible.

All the best,
Mary Greene

 

Hi mary

yes ,your router should protect u from unsolicited inbound traffic,while software firewalls would allow u to decide what internet access (if any) is allowed by a specific program,

www.grc.com/su-firewalls.htm

HTH

SpyD

EDIT: -

I dont know ur router(whether configurable or not,but mine isnt(on firewall level))
i.e,if my computer initiated a connection i knew nothing about(spyware,adware phoning home) my router would allow it as it thinks im doing it,so i use S/W firewall as primary to make sure i have control of all outbound traffic

 

Hi Mary

As SpyD noted, your router will protect you from unsolicited inbound connection attempts. What routers cannot control is the applications running on your systems that want network/Internet access. This is why it is usually recommended to run a software firewall on your systems, to control which applications have access to the network/Internet. There are good free software firewalls in addition to ones you can purchase.

Most software firewalls will allow you to configure them to allow file/printer sharing on the LAN while still protecting those services from the Internet.

Regards,

CrazyM