Do I really need a firewall? Software or Hardware, which one?

In the world today, with many people having an “always on” connection, you do need a firewall! Even if you are using dial-up to connect to the world wide web.

What kind is mostly up to the individual. The hardware type is useful because it can provide a stronger degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the Internet. In most cases, they can be better for the home because they can be effective with little or no configuration, and protect every machine on a local/home network.

They do have one glaring problem since they typically treat any kind of traffic traveling from the local network out to the Internet as safe, which can sometimes be a problem. Which means any infection with a Trojan or any virus which uses e-mail to spread, if it isn't caught by your anti-virus program, it will allow it to spread. Even if the amount of traffic is higher than normal.

Software types are a bit tricky. They install like any other software on your computer which is easy enough, but most of them have a learning curve trying to figure out which programs to let through to the Internet. This is a good thing, sort of. If you don't know you have some “hidden” program contacting the Internet, you won't recognize it.

Of course, some of the programs inside almost all computers contact the Internet on a daily basis. Still, when the traffic is coming from your machine, most of the time it is allowed through. Software types do ask if this is OK most of the time but you still have to be very careful.

Sometimes, firewalls will stop communication which is necessary. Which can render your computer almost useless for e-mail and browsing. This is why I use a strong anti-virus and a spy-ware program as well to keep any web-nasties from getting in or on my computer. Need help with your firewall? Click here!