Software Firewall And./OR Hardware Firewall?

[m316foley]

I am getting broadband access in about 2 weeks (cable). I was always told that hardware firewalls were better than software firewall. Software Better? Hardware Firewall? OR should I use both? I'd appreacite your opinions on this.....

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*HAVE A NICE DAY*

[Sergeant Tux]

a software firewall should do you just fine. The best software firewall out there (not to mention that it is free) is ZoneAlarm from Zonelabs. You can get it here

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[al bundy]

I may be all alone on this, but I recommend using both a NAT router (hardware firewall) along with a software firewall too.

This is also a recommended combination by many hardware router manufacturers. It will provide both great protection along with allowing sharing of your broadband connection.

[Mr_CPU]

Originally posted by al bundy:
I may be all alone on this, but I recommend using both a NAT router (hardware firewall) along with a software firewall too.

Hey Al, you are not alone on that one. I use both. I had Norton Personal at first but got paranoid after the first week and I had about a dozen attempts to plant trojans on my system. I bought the Linksys 4 port router and have had great luck with it. I run the software firewall too. I have yet to log any hits since I put the hardware into use. I go to Steve Gibsons Shields Up site and test my ports etc. The major ones (that he tests) show up as Stealth. Of course there are over 60000 ports I believe so if someone is truly a good hacker he can probably do the job. What is nice about the software firewalls is that they can notify you if your system is trying to connect to the internet should you get a trojan or bot via email or some file download.

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[richardginn]

ZoneAlarm will be fine, but if you want to be a nut go for both the Hardware and software firewall and make the outside people go nuts.

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