McAfee's firewall OK behind a wireless router?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JMF
  • Start date Start date
J

JMF

Since I have DSL, I've decided I'd better get a firewall. So I'm thinking of
buying VirusScan 7 which has an integrated firewall.

I use a Netgear wireless router at home to manage the DSL connection. I
connect behind it with my desktop on a cable and with my laptop on a
wireless card. Works great. As I understand it, these things manage the
connection directly and do NAT Network Address Translation to distribute the
connection around to the computers.

I was wondering whether any of this could get in the way of the firewall in
any way. I guess I'm basically asking because I heard that, for instance,
NetMeeting could have problems when a firewall is involved.

So: anybody know whether VirusScan 7 and in particular the integrated
firewall will still work on my computers when they are connecting to the
Internet through a router like mine?

Thanks,

John
 
Since I have DSL, I've decided I'd better get a firewall. So I'm thinking of
buying VirusScan 7 which has an integrated firewall.

I use a Netgear wireless router at home to manage the DSL connection. I
connect behind it with my desktop on a cable and with my laptop on a
wireless card. Works great. As I understand it, these things manage the
connection directly and do NAT Network Address Translation to distribute the
connection around to the computers.

I was wondering whether any of this could get in the way of the firewall in
any way. I guess I'm basically asking because I heard that, for instance,
NetMeeting could have problems when a firewall is involved.

So: anybody know whether VirusScan 7 and in particular the integrated
firewall will still work on my computers when they are connecting to the
Internet through a router like mine?

Thanks,

John
Click to expand...
************* REPLY SEPARATER **************
When set up properly, a NAT router is a firewall. By default, it blocks all
outside access to listening ports behind the router. If you open it up to
direct all ports to a particular IP, then you defeat one of the main reasons
for using it. A dedicated device like a NAT router is far superior to ANY piece
of software loaded in your computer, as it cannot easily be tampered with.

Netmeeting using the H323 protocol utilizes a random series of ports to set up
its communication. Because of this, it doesn't work behind a firewall as you
never know which ports to allow access. There is a newer protocol known as SIP
(Session Initiation Protocol) that gets around this particular problem, but it
is not as widely used.

J.A. Coutts
Systems Engineer
MantaNet/TravPro
 
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