Firewall (1 Viewer)

[ShiftZZ]

Besides the software firewall does anyone have any hardware firewall, or experience in using one?

Are they worth the money?

 

[sdc77]

Hardware based firewall is a bit pointless for simple home use.. (remember your router will normally have a firewall too)

Zone alarm is quite a good free firewall btw..

 

[Gromett]

A hardware firewall is just another computer running a software firewall oh:

I only really see the use to these if you have a network of devices/systems you want to protect. They are great for management of a small business network and up.

Home use? Not so much...

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[camcondor]

You do get dedicated hardware firewalls which are not just another computer running a firewall....... I have two such devices, both of which are pretty useful to secure small networks. I will check out their details and get back to you Shifftz........

 

[bungy]

Besides the software firewall does anyone have any hardware firewall, or experience in using one?

Are they worth the money?

as nones asked yet.....whats are you looking to achieve?

if its additional security on you home DSL then the existing DSL router (I assuming it has firewall features) will be more than adequate, the vast majority of network edge devices nowdays are multi functional - as in router/switch/firewall/DSL/3g....

if your looking at setting up separate zones within the home network then there are a few options which will give you good sec levels without needing to go down the dedicated FW route...

PS - all firewalls are worth the money...its the setting of the policies incorrectly that makes them worthless...

 

[Gromett]

You do get dedicated hardware firewalls which are not just another computer running a firewall....... I have two such devices, both of which are pretty useful to secure small networks. I will check out their details and get back to you Shifftz........

I wasn't being derogatory when I made my post. My slap on the head was aimed at myself for stating the obvious more than anything.

A hardware firewall IS just another computer running firewall software. There is nothing special about them at all. I have run/managed dedicated juniper and cisco firewalls for my networks and it is nice to have a centralised place to manage policies for the entire network but they don't achieve anything more than a firewall running on the computer you are working on as far as that specific computers security is concerned.

The downfall of the dedicated firewall in a home environment is if you connect it to one of the ethernet ports on your DSL router and then connect your computers etc to the hardware firewall the hardware firewall will not protect anything connected to wifi side of the DSL router for example.

Also as most home DSL connections are run via NAT system a hardware firewall inside this is next to pointless unless you want to prevent outgoing connections on certain ports or to certain external IP's.

I have a firewall running on my wifirouter and another running on my linux desktop. This more than suffices.

I don't run a hardware firewall on my server network anymore. Each server runs iptables and I use a centralised configuration utility to manage them.

So except for specific uses I wouldn't recommend the expense of a hardware firewall just learn what capabilities your DLS/Wifi router has.

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[hdvrod]

On the subject of firewalls etc,while back my pc was playing up badly so took it to my local independent shop for them to have a look at,they fixed it and told me I had several virus's which they had removed.I queried this and said I had a well known antivirus installed,they then showed me this list of 20 or so antivirus programmes numbered in order of effectiveness,and most of the better known ones were well down the list,they said they used a free one called "Avira" and was number 2 on their list.I have now installed it on all our laptops and never had a problem since.