Hosting a game with firewall disabled... Is it safe?

My son has a new gaming computer. He wants to disable the firewall on the router in order to host a game.

Is this safe?

I don't know much about it. It is my understanding that firewalls are to prevent intrusions. He said if we disable the router firewall we could use the firewalls built into XP. But he would need to disable his firewall in XP to host a game.

Again, Is this safe?

I asked why one of the other players can't host the game and he stated the the others have multiple firewalls preventing them from hosting.

I'd hate for him to toast a new $1700.00 computer (that I paid for).

I'm really not up to speed like the majority of the members here. So I depend on your comments and suggestions.

All comments and replies are appreciated.

Thanks!

 

an intrusion wont fry your new PC but they can put your PC at their mercy, and leech various info/passwords. You shouldn't need to disable your firewalls, rather use port fowarding, which is enabled through the routers program.

Port fowarding is an advanced feature, kind of telling your firewall(s) "ok information with THIS ID can go through, but no one eles", Some routers allow the entire program to get the "your safe" flag, other routers you need to manually input the port for it to allow function.

The ports your game uses are found in the manuall or at the mfg's website, they (ussally) give you the step-by-step proceedure of how to do it, if not post your game name and router and we can atempt to make it painless for you.

General rule of thumb is if you have more then one firewall one you need to enable the game/application on both. The best 'protective' combo you can have is Hardware firewall (router), software firewall (ie. mcaffee) and antivirus protection. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply. I know nothing about this kind of thing and my son seems to see no threat by not using a firewall. I will attemp to get my son to find out what ports are used. I may need to ask for more help.

Again, thanks for your input on this matter.

Dennis

 

Generally you can figure out which port is used by going into the options section of whatever game it is... And also, having a combonation of Microsoft AntiSpyware and A-squared antivirus, and Zone Alarm personal firewall is pretty much an excellent combo to keep your computer safe. Almost all the gamers I know (including me) use this combonation of programs, unless all your son does is go to LAN (all comps connected to each other, no internet involved) parties where its pretty much safe to disable all firewalls. Zone Alarm Personal Firewall (free) is an excellent program to have because it will let you chose whether or not you want to allow internet access to a program, so if hes playing a game it will pop up and ask him if he wants to allow internet access to whatever program demands internet access. Although if you have your computer on the same router as his, your computer will get virii/virus first and then it will hit his computer, unless both are protected.