Firewall

Do I need to run a separate firewall (cable conection) with Windows/2000? Windows/NT? Is there one you recommend?

Thanks. I always get good advice here. It's become one of my favorite sites. Maybe one say someone will ask a question I can answer. lol

 

I would always run a firewall, especially with a broadband connection. I personally use Norton, but McAfee makes a good one and so does PcCilling. I actually run a firewall on a router and one on each PC inside the network.

 

I totally agree with the first reply.
YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF!!!

Linksys is a hardware firewall/router that is easy to setup and fairly cheap.

Also there are some free software firewalls without all the bells and whistles, but symantec and mcafee like indicated would be a solid choice, they provide updates to their software to protect againsat the latest vulnability.

I think hardware is always better though.

 

I'm using a Linksys router. When I had conflicts with it and McAfee, they told me there is a firewall in the router and didn't need an additional one. True?

 

The firewall included in most routers is based on what's known as Network Address Translation (NAT). Basically, this means the router creates its own set of local IP (Internet protocol) addresses for each computer on your network. The NAT router hides your local network addresses from the Internet by translating those individual addresses into one common IP address. It also keeps track of all outgoing data packets, translating them to the common IP address, as well as all the incoming packets, translating them to the individual desktop addresses.
It's something like how a phone system at a large company works. When you dial out from your office, the person you're calling won't see your direct telephone extension; he'll see the company's main phone number instead. In the same way, someone looking for vulnerable computers on the Internet sees only one IP address for a network with a NAT router. Since no one outside your net can see the address for your PC, no one can attack it.
While NAT routers will keep hackers from discovering the nature of your network (how many systems you have, what OSes they're running, etc.), and help protect you from attackers trying to break in, that's only half the battle. The other half is protecting your net from hackers who have already broken in--via a Trojan horse or spyware, for example--and are trying to send outgoing messages to the Internet from your systems.
That's why you need yet a second layer of defense: outbound protection.
You can get this extra layer of security by installing a software firewall on each desktop or laptop on your net--or on your individual PC, if you only have one computer. This software will alert you whenever malicious programs on your system try to connect to the Internet.