Qustion about firewalls

[john ranger]

Wondering  how you tell if a firewall is better than the other? For instance... Windows firewall how does it compare to AVG and others? How do you know this??

[Black Viper]

A hardware firewall is better then all software firewalls.
Hardware meaning dedicated device external to the system being protected.

However, that is just another layer of security as well as others available. Firewall has been ran through the generic word definition a bunch, but I will try and separate things out a bit.

All firewalls should do the same task just as well as all others: block all external packets not specifically requested from getting through. In that respect, they are all pretty much the same.

Many have application filters (which is not a firewall) that allow particular programs access "out" or stateful packet inspection to drop "bad" packets.

If you are looking at more or different features, then that could get really in depth.

[john ranger]

What would you recommend for a  hardware firewall for home use?

[Black Viper]

Dlink:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=530

Gigabit, Wireless and lots of internal features.
This is assuming you do have DSL/cable or the like.

Anything but Netgear does the job (still bitter about a couple bad experiences).

[john ranger]

I'm using a Linksys Wireless n broadband router now. Will I have to not use this as well? Not sure never had a hardware firewall:(

[Black Viper]

I'm using a Linksys Wireless n broadband router now. Will I have to not use this as well? Not sure never had a hardware firewall:(

That is fine. More then likely, your Linksys is acting as a hardware firewall as it is.

[john ranger]

Ahh well that's good news I just saved a 100 bucks. Thanks

[boilerman]

For software firewall ratings you might check this website.  

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

[couttsj]

I'm using a Linksys Wireless n broadband router now. Will I have to not use this as well? Not sure never had a hardware firewall:(

A NAT router (such as your Linksys) translates between the public network (Internet), and your private network (192.168.x.x/10.x.x.x). It does this by maintaining a NAT table similar to the ARP table your computer uses. As long as the request was initiated from the private network, the NAT table knows where the response should be directed. It doesn't know where to direct requests that come from the public network, and as such it inherantly acts as an inbound firewall. That it unless you use the DMZ feature, which completely bypasses this protection.

J.A. Coutts

[john ranger]

 DMZ feature?? Can you explain please. This is all I see in my Linksys control panel.
http://www.johnranger.com/12.jpg

[john ranger]

Ah found this. I think that's what you mean...


http://www.johnranger.com/13.jpg

[couttsj]

DMZ feature?? Can you explain please. This is all I see in my Linksys control panel.

Most NAT routers have the ability to direct all incoming requests from the Internet that aren't accounted for in the NAT table to a specific IP address on the private network. This was implemented to allow games and file sharing programs to be able to receive incoming requests, and this usually goes by the name of DMZ. Routers also have the ability to handle specific port forwarding, and this is a far safer way to approach this issue. For example, remote operating software such as VNC listens by default on port 5900. To use this software to support a machine behind a NAT router, the router must be configured to forward all incoming requests on port 5900 to the IP address of the listening machine. This necessitates using fixed IP addressing on the private network.

If you used all the standard defaults to set up your router, then you are probably not using either DMZ or Port Forwarding.

J.A. Coutts