Firewall For Technophobe Parents

Robothell

I've possibly made the biggest mistake of life.......I've hooked up my parents' computer to the internet. My folks are possibly the least technically minded people on the planet, honestly my Dad still has to phone me to ask me how to turn on the hi-fi, dvd player etc. Still, I figured now they have the time on their hands (they're both now retired) it's about time they broadened their horizons.

I want to put on decent security software for them. I've activated the hardware firewall on their router, they have AVG antivirus and I've put AdAware and Spybot on too. Everything is just set to run in the background and scan regularly as I don't reckon they'll be able to do it themselves. I was going to give them Comodo Firewall but I think the way it constantly asks if you want to block various apps would just confuse them (my OH keeps denying IE7 access to the net and then wondering why Google won't load!). My question is this......is there an idiot proof firewall out there, preferable freeware, that will give reasonable security and not confuse my folks?

Cheers

albertross_2

The one built into windows.

the router will do most of the work, as you say, anything with outbound filtering will confuse them, and they will just click allow, which makes 3rd party firewalls pointless.

colin79666

I agree just use Windows built in one, it will stop most attacks and it won't nag for permission. The routers firewall will give some outbound protection and your unlikely to need outbound protection anyway as you have the full works regarding anti virus and spyware.