Hardware firewalls

Hi guys,
I just swhitched from dial up to broadband, and I was adviced to get a hardware firewall, they told me to get the ALPHA SHIELD brand, my question is
do I really need a hardware firewall? if so
can I run both(hardware-software firewall) without conflicting each other.

I really appreciate any suggestions

Once again,Thanks guys
Torotote



window xp/sp2-hp ze4400

 

HI, A hardware firewall such as in a router, is much more aggressive than a software firewall and therefore a much better option. A software firewall such as Zone Alarm (which i use) tend to be more user friendly with automatic set ups and can do a lot of things (Zone Alarm can be budled with its own brand of antivirus)
You should only ever have 1 firewall running at anyone time. if you are using a hardware firewall there is no need for a software firewall or the windows built in firewall. running more than one firewall can cause conflicts between processes and IP packets, ie. one firewall may allow cirtain traffic, the other may not, result, no traffic into or out of your computer (this includes internal traffic, as the pc its self uses ports and ip addresses to send its own information around)
A good example of this is if i am not connected to the internet at all but i run zone alarm, i will often get messages such as "Win32 service.exe would like to act as a server IP range 0.0.0.0. 127.0.0.1 allow this service?" sounds confusing? not at all, those ip's are internal, if i deny server rights to the service my computer would hang because of the firewall. shut down the firewall and the pc behaves freely with no interuptions lol.
The choice is ultimately yours
Hardware firewall - very good, secure, rock solid, not very user friendly, generally hacker proof, adaptive (learns as it works, monitors your actions and reactions to internet usage and alters [but never relaxes] its security settings)
Software firewall - excellent results, secure, high stability, user friendly, requires regular updates, difficult but not impossible to hack (carefull set up required) can be adaptive (ie monitor ip addresses and block constant connection attempts to your pc)
Windows firewall - fine for short term use (ie while you set up your pc and get updates and buy a better firewall and antivirus) useless for anything else.
hope this helps

 

actually it'd be better if you have both. a hardware firewall will block ports etc. (incoming). but a software firewall will let you know what's going on (kinda), it will block incoming and outgoing stuff (depending on your options setup), thus letting you know more. what kind of broadband do you have (cable/dsl)? who's your provider (i have dsl, from sbc)? what kind of modem do you have? some of the modems/routers (mine is both), have a hard firewall built into the unit. if your unsure, i'd check with your provider.

fyi, when i 1st got my dsl, i didn't have a software firewall, and i was unsure about it etc. i noticed that when i did install one, i never really got any hits, and when i started using kazza, i started getting like 10-50 hits plus a day. anyway, just my 2 cents worth. - sos