Firewall???

Hi Geeks!!! I have a home network of 5 computers using netgear gateway wireless router (no pc's are wireless as yet, all wired). Question is--I would like to use a nice firewall at inexpensive price. I heard pros and cons on all kinds such as Zone Alarm. Now I dont want major resources taken up although most of my computers are P3 and P4s with 512 SDRAM and RDRAM. But one P3 933mhz Dell with 512 Ram system is running intense programs like Photoshop and other graphics and web develp. together. SO I would like resources to be plenty available there. Also, since I am running a workgroup I would have to install on all systems right? Or can I choose on system to use the firewall for the others?
I respect opinions here at Majorgeeks so I ask: What would you suggest?? Thanks

 

You just need one firewall and it should be on the router. Normally there is an in built firewall available / downloadable for most routers.
Regards
FBW

 

Firewall

Can't get better than Zone Alarm. AND it's free. Forget Black Ice and Tiny.

 

Sure it can *BSD box makes a good firewall.. just ask Vlad

 

i use agnitum outpost,, but whatever you choose i suggest you test it here..
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

 

Hell yeah!

If you have a router then you don't really need a firewall other then seeing what programs connect to the internet and which don't... Just to be safe I'd run a port scan against your IP so to make sure it's blocking eveyrhting....

And I don't recommend using grc.com as show in this rant:

http://majorgeeks.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20558

(Go down a little)

 

if its the wireless router from netgear i'm thinking of it has an industrial firewall built into it, you don't need a software firewall. Post up the model number.

 

I can't imagine a netgear router having an *industrial* strength firewall in it...

But then when I think industrial strength, I think of something that wouldn't be in a consumer product.

 

well, you look at a router, like :
http://www.netgear.com/images/products/thumbnails/mr814.jpg

It will have NAT in it and unless you specifically tell it to it blocks all ports. Personally tho, i like to keep Sygate running on all my PC's so you know whats trying to get out. Plus we have a laptop which goes walkies somtimes and you never know what it might have caught while its been out and about

 

Security Features: Firewall: Stateful Packet Inspection, Intrusion logging and reporting, Denial of Service protection
VPN Functionality: NAT traversal (VPN pass-through) for IPSec, PPTP and L2TP VPNs
Mode of Operation: Network Address Translation (NAT), static routing
IP Address Assignment: Static IP address assignment, internal DHCP server on LAN, DHCP client on WAN

thats pretty heavy when you consider what routers normally come with. thats the netgear model DG824M

 

What home routers come with maybe, it's nothing compared to Routers that actually have multi-user operating systerms, etc.

 

hmm, there not in the thousands of euro price range either. Most home routers only come with nat(here anyway), while low end industrial router would have what i posted above. i'm not talking about router firewalls that would potect multi million dollar computer sysems now.

 

Netgear is just trying to impress you Joe.


For example, Dlink's cheapest router has a built in firewall too.

Firewall Features
- Access-list control
- Domain filtering
- URL filtering
- Packet filtering
- Ping of Death
- IP spoofing
- Intrusion detection
- Network access rules
- Log file of security events

It will also email the logs to whoever you set it to.


It also supports VPN.


VPN Pass Through/Multi-Sessions
PPTP
L2TP
IPSec


Of course it has all the NAT features of the Netgear as well.

I wouldn trust it to save me from much of anything though

 

"IP spoofing" explain that one to me, is it what i think it is. Does that router have spi, this one seems to have all that stuff you posted and more.

 

They list so much stuff that is obvious or just useless but home users wouldn't know, Ping of Death? What the hell is this 1996? I wonder how they stop IP spoofing, do they mean stop directed broadcasts (leads to smurf attacks...) ?

I personally hate Netgear for many reasons' of my own...

IP spoofing is where you send a packet to someone with someone elses' IPs', how it stops it I don't know....

 

what i thought, and what i want to know also. a ping of death how i missed you.

thats dlink btw not netgear. why do you hate netgear.

 

I was talking about your router, my expiernce with them and their blatant stupidity by hard specifing NTP servers in their routers therefore DoSing them...

Ping of Death actually used to (or still may) take down the Norton firewall *laughs and laughs*

 

fair enough recommend me a hardware firewall router within the 300 euro price range and i'll buy it. I don't have tunel vision about these things show me a better one and i'll consider it. what do you think about sonicwall?

 

I don't know too much about the brands of routers (get one instead of a hardware firewall, it'll do more for ya)... I'd recommend getting a D-link though... I personally run an old 586 as a firewall/router...

 

well thats the plan, router with built in firewall. if you recon dlink is better i'll have a look. I'd do the same as you with a p133 but i can't find my way around mandrake