A firewall can be either a hardware product or software program that is designed to prevent outsiders from accessing your computer or network, and in some cases used to prevent applications already located on your computer from accessing the Internet in order to transmit back to a host. These applications can be understood as having a Server/Client relationship. The program that is installed on your computer can be referred to as the client, and when the client attains the information that it was designed to acquire, it connects to the Server to transmit the data.
Some of the programs that get installed on your computer, such as the free P2P programs that allow you to share music or movies, are generally referred to as Adware or Spyware programs, because they gather information about you such as your geographical location, what websites you visit, maybe your age and gender, and then target advertisements to you based on that information. Some of the more insidious programs will go so far as to capture credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, birthdates and account numbers and try to transmit this information back to a Server computer.
Ideally, you would want...