Firewalls?

[chaosquall]

Does using a firewall slow my internet connection speed at all? i know it effect you cpu and ram usage, im talking about does it increase latancy?

 

[Craig321]

Just turn the firewall on your router on. If you have a decent router they'll generally do the job, and obviously won't take any CPU/RAM on your PC.

 

[chaosquall]

i have no router, my modem is connected directly to my pc. I'm not worried about the ram usage / cpu usage i was just wondering if it would make browsing the internet / downloading/ping in games any slower? because the software has to first look at whats incoming then see if its good or bad. Am i right?

 

[JonJ678]

I don't believe it looks at what the data is, just at where its coming from. As such the effect on latency should be close to zero, unless of course it blocks whatever you're trying to connect to.

If ram/cpu usage isn't much of an issue, I quite like the idea of running ipcop in a virtual machine as a firewall, you feed all your network traffic through a linux distribution built for the purpose.

 

[weird_dave]

Not having any firewall at all is usually a bad idea.
I suggest you check sheilds up!
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
and see what ports are open, if any.

 

[J.B]

Well it will effect you a bit, a tiny amount though.

Treat your self to a router. It's a worth wild investment.

 

[chaosquall]

i dont know much about networking can some one link me to a router i use ethernet cables and am on a 20mbps fibre optic cable line. I dont need wireless

 

[Rocker]

Software firewalls will provide much more security. Hardware firewalls, such as on your router etc. will provide protection against the average attack, however unless its somke fancy hardware firewall will not protect you against attacks such as HTTP Fake Antivirus Install Requests. Where as software firewalls will. I would recomend both, they will likely not slow down your connection by any noticable difference

 

[weird_dave]

however unless its somke fancy hardware firewall will not protect you against attacks such as HTTP Fake Antivirus Install Requests. Where as software firewalls will.

How please?

 

[bigredshark]

How please?

They won't. The pile of associated features they cram in the software might but it isn't a firewall as such, more correctly an IDP.

 

[bigredshark]

Not having any firewall at all is usually a bad idea.
I suggest you check sheilds up!
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
and see what ports are open, if any.

So says conventional wisdom but I beg to differ these days, a regularly updated windows box isn't easily compromised at all these days (with windows firewall enabled even less so).

We have a few hundred customers who insist on running windows servers on public IPs with no firewall (hardware or software) and I've yet to see one get hacked by way of an OS flaw (PHP exploits - yes, but not yet seen one due to an OS issue).

While I don't really recommend running without a firewall I do challenge the consensus from shields up and the like that you'll be hacked in 30 seconds. It's just not true these days, there's no evidence for it.

I do however, hate software firewalls myself, get a nice cheap router (maybe a linksys flashed with DDWRT) and be done with it if you're concerned. Otherwise turn on windows firewall, keep up to date with windows updates and don't worry too much...

 

[weird_dave]

Still best to check sheildsup, if any networking ports are open....
I recall a friend installing XP, connecting to the web to update, getting owned by blaster in seconds OK, so maybe it's less of a problem these days, but why take the chance?