I noticed my firewall defaulted to off, and promptly enabled it. However, the article suggests my MBP may still be vulnerable.
Inexcusable.
The 'average user' has no need to accept any incoming connections. It is DEAD EASY to design a firewall that drops all incoming connections, and yet they have failed at that. Weird.
So if one were to set the firewall to block all incoming connections (which apparently it still won't do), would it block normal traffic such as torrents or other downloading things such as web browsers and other safe apps? (I'm a networking n00b)
So if one were to set the firewall to block all incoming connections (which apparently it still won't do), would it block normal traffic such as torrents or other downloading things such as web browsers and other safe apps? (I'm a networking n00b)
No. Incoming connections means connections originating from elsewhere*. In the cases you cite, you are requesting information, hence an outgoing conection.
Comments
I noticed my firewall defaulted to off, and promptly enabled it. However, the article suggests my MBP may still be vulnerable.
Inexcusable.
The 'average user' has no need to accept any incoming connections. It is DEAD EASY to design a firewall that drops all incoming connections, and yet they have failed at that. Weird.
So if one were to set the firewall to block all incoming connections (which apparently it still won't do), would it block normal traffic such as torrents or other downloading things such as web browsers and other safe apps? (I'm a networking n00b)
No. Incoming connections means connections originating from elsewhere*. In the cases you cite, you are requesting information, hence an outgoing conection.
* eg: running a server of some kind.