firewall and anti-virus

[ITlover]

Does a firewall and anti-virus installed in a computer prevent that computer from connecting to internet via wireless or wired connection or it only prevents packets comming in and going out of the computer after connection is established?

Can a firewall or anti-virus in a computer block the ping command?

[Statica]

Firstly, its a firewall you're talking about when you deal with these subjects. Some antivirus programs may offer firewalling services .. but any such network capabilities are dealt with by firewalls

Originally Posted by ITlover Does a firewall and anti-virus installed in a computer prevent that computer from connecting to internet via wireless or wired connection or it only prevents packets comming in and going out of the computer after connection is established?

Mostly blocking packets. However, there are those that can be configured to prevent connection to a foreign network.

Originally Posted by ITlover Can a firewall or anti-virus in a computer block the ping command?

Yes .. look for "ICMP blocking". Good firewalls will show up as a blackhole when an ICMP request like PING is sent. Not so good ones will respond back with a denial. Bad ones dont know what ICMP requests are.