Need a firewall?

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Both of my computers are accessing the internet through a router. One through a wireless connection. The other through a nic card. Cable modem is connected to the router. All firewalls are turned off to allow home networking. Do I need to run a firewall?
 
rsg said:
Both of my computers are accessing the internet through a router. One through a wireless connection. The other through a nic card. Cable modem is connected to the router. All firewalls are turned off to allow home networking. Do I need to run a firewall?
Click to expand...

Routers use NAT to supply inbound firewall protection. The added benefit
of firewall software on the PCs is outbound firewall protection, which
protects you from trojans and the like that you may inadvertently download.

If you *never* download any executables, and you never load any software
that is untrustworthy, then you may not need firewall software. But, since
firewall software is either cheap or free, I recommed it for most users.
 
rsg said:
Both of my computers are accessing the internet through a router. One through a wireless connection. The other through a nic card. Cable modem is connected to the router. All firewalls are turned off to allow home networking. Do I need to run a firewall?
Click to expand...

Your router protects your computers against undesired incoming
connections from the Internet.

However, it doesn't protect them against undesired outgoing
connections from your computers to the Internet caused by computer
viruses, spyware programs, etc. If you want protection from them, run
a firewall program that has that feature. Note that XP's built-in
Internet Connection Firewall doesn't have that feature, and there
would be no benefit to running it.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
Thank you for the reply. I had been running a commonly used free firewall, but it was creating network problems. Suggestions for how to get around?

----- Bob Willard wrote: -----
Both of my computers are accessing the internet through a router. One through a wireless connection. The other through a nic card. Cable modem is connected to the router. All firewalls are turned off to allow home networking. Do I need to run a firewall?
Click to expand...

Routers use NAT to supply inbound firewall protection. The added benefit
of firewall software on the PCs is outbound firewall protection, which
protects you from trojans and the like that you may inadvertently download.

If you *never* download any executables, and you never load any software
that is untrustworthy, then you may not need firewall software. But, since
firewall software is either cheap or free, I recommed it for most users.
 
Thank you for the reply. I had been running a commonly used free firewall, but it was creating network problems. Suggestions for how to get around?
 
rsg said:
Thank you for the reply. I had been running a commonly used free firewall, but it was creating network problems. Suggestions for how to get around?
Click to expand...

What firewall is it? What type of network problems did it create?

The more details you give, the more likely it is that someone can
help.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
Sorry. I guess that was a pretty vague question

I have been using the free version of Zone Alarm. It appears that the computer running the firewall is prevented from being seen by the other computers on the network. I checked out the Zone Alarm web site and I think I need to list the computers in the network as "trusted," but I don't know how to find the IP addresses

Thanks
rsg
 
rsg said:
Sorry. I guess that was a pretty vague question.

I have been using the free version of Zone Alarm. It appears that the computer running the firewall is prevented from being seen by the other computers on the network. I checked out the Zone Alarm web site and I think I need to list the computers in the network as "trusted," but I don't know how to find the IP addresses.

Thanks.
rsg
Click to expand...

Yep - I use ZoneAlarm, free and paid-for, and you do need to create a
Trusted Zone to share stuff on the PCs on your LAN. For any PC, you
can run WINIPCFG for W9x or, for XP, run CMD then type IPCONFIG/ALL in
the CMD window to get the current IPA for that PC. Easier yet, if you
use DHCP on your LAN, is to login to the router and find the DHCP page
to discover the range of IPAs it will assign.

With the ZA Control window, click on Firewall, then on Zones, then Add
a range of IPAs which will cover the IPAs on your LAN; with a typical
router, this might be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.255. Note that, while
192.168.1.0-192.168.1.255 seems overly broad, those are non-routable
IPAs and are, therefore, not visible from the WAN-side of your router.

With ZA, after you Add the IP range, you need to click on Apply --
easy to forget. And if you wish, you can give it some name, such as
"Home of the Lan and the Brave" <g>.
 
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