Vista Firewall Control

Windows Vista's firewall is better than the one built into Windows XP because it includes outbound protection as well as inbound protection. Outbound protection is vital, because Trojan horses and spyware often use silent outbound connections to do their damage. In addition, some surreptitious software uses invisible outbound connection from your PC to send out spam or malware without your knowing it.

The Windows Vista firewall has one big problem, though: The outbound firewall is almost impossible to configure. The free Vista Firewall Control utility gives you the control that Vista should have. With it, whenever a program attempts to make an outbound connection, an alert appears, identifying the application's path and file name, the publisher's name, and the application's name. Based on what you see, you can then choose to enable or disable the connection permanently or one time only.

Download Vista Firewall Control | Price: Free

PASSWORD PROTECTION

Password theft is one of the greatest privacy dangers that an Internet user faces online. With the following downloads, you'll be able to keep your passwords private and yet still keep track of them.

KeePass Password Safe

Most people have dozens of passwords that they use for Web sites, Web-based mail, ATMs, and more. They have become a fact of automated life. But it doesn't matter how much antivirus software and antimalware you use; if your password is stolen, you're in trouble.

KeePass Password Safe offers a simple way to keep track of all your passwords while keeping them safe. It lets you store all of your passwords in a lightweight, simple-to-use database, and it encrypts the database so that only you have access to it. You can lock it with a master password or with a file key.

The program stores all of your passwords in groups, so you can quickly find the one you want. And the program lets you easily drag and drop your passwords, copy them to the clipboard, and paste them into a Web page or an application using a hot-key. You can also search for passwords, and print and export them in various formats, including CSV, HTML, TXT, and XML files. You can import them, too.

The application can generate hard-to-crack passwords for you, as well--a nice extra for people who want to make their passwords extra secure.

Download KeePass Password Safe | Price: Free