# Windows Firewall



## Joseph_Michael (Aug 1, 2014)

Hello everyone,



I'm writing to you all concerning the windows firewall settings.

I am wondering what apps and features should I allow or not allow internet connection through firewall?



Is it wise to uncheck all apps and features from allowed apps in the windows firewall settings?



Which ones do I need to check and uncheck?

I am asking because I was told that allowing an app and feature to communicate lowers computer security risk and allows hackers to hack computer.



Here is the list of items that are checked for allowed apps and features:



Games App

AccuWeather for Windows 8

AquaFish

Bing Finance

Bing Food & Drink

Bing Health & Fitness

Bing News

Bing Sports

Bing Travel

Bing Weahter

Blackjack Fever

Bonjour Service

Box

Checkers Deluxe

CheckPoint.VPN

Color Memo

Connect to a Network Projector

Core Networking

CyberLink PowerDirector

CyberLink PowerDVD14

CyberLink PowerDVD14 Agent

CyberLink PowerDVD14 Movie Module

Dragon Smart Phone Server

eBay

f5.vpn.client

File and Printer Sharing

Games

Getting Started with Windows 8

Google Chrome

HomeGroup

HP Connected Drive

HP Connected Music

HP Connected Music Installer

HP Connected Music Spotify Helper

HP Connected Photo

HP Device Detection

HP Registration

iTunes

JuniperNetworks.JunosPulseVpn

Kindle

Mail, Calendar, and People

Maps

McAfee Shared Services Host

McAfee Central for HP

Microsoft Lync

Microsoft Lync UcMapi

Microsoft Office Outlook

Mozilla Firefox

Music

MyWiFiDHCPDNS

Netflix

Network Discovery

NVIDIA Network Service TCP Exception (HTTPS) (eight of them)

PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX+

PAC-MAN MUSEUM

Paltalk Messenger

Play To Functionality

Proximity Sharing

Replay Media Catcher 5 QT Module

Replay Media Catcher 5 Torrent Module

SHIELD Streaming Application TCP Exception

SHIELD Streaming Application UDP Exception

SHIELD Streaming Service TCP Exception

SHIELD Streaming Service UDP Exception

Skype

sMedio 360

SonicWALL.MobileConnect

Source SDK

Source SDK Base 2007

Stream

Store

Video

Wi-Fi Direct Network Discovery

Windows Live Communications Platform

Windows Live Communications Platform (SSDP)

Windows Live Communications Platform (UPnP)

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

Windows Reading List

windows_ie_ac_001

Windows Display

Yahoo! Messenger

YouCam for HP

Zoo Tycoon 2 Executable


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## lunarlander (Sep 22, 2007)

Any network reachable application is a candidate for hacker tampering. The best guide is yourself - uncheck the ones that you don't use. And then, for those apps that you do use, question if you need internet access for them. For example, your PowerDVD items can be unchecked, since internet access serves no purpose for that kind of application. ( I don't have PowerDVD, so I am just guessing that it is used to play DVD movies ). Another one is Bing Weather. I assume that since you have install Accuweather that you don't need Bing Weather no more, so you can uncheck either one of them. Also you can uncheck the vpn items if you don't have them, those entries come as default on all Windows8 machines, because MS wants people to have a good experience and have their VPN working upon a fresh install..

For me, I only install networking applications only if I must have them. And I uncheck all apps that I seldom use. 

You don't need to worry that you have unchecked a wrong item, since you will notice that the app doesn't work.


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## Joseph_Michael (Aug 1, 2014)

Thank you for taking the time to help and explain. I really do appreciate it.


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