tech advice : How important is it to have a firewall ?

[Yig]

My friend won't stop buggin me about how important it is for me to have a firewall on my home computer with a dial up modem. I thought firewalls were for big ass networks and shit. He's a wannabe tech head who is'nt sure of himself but insists he knows anyways

He just got cable internet now but he doesnt want to use it unless he gets a firewall.

I think he's being silly. But I'm not sure what the fuck they are exactly, I thought they got in the way of alot of downloads and online gaming. [img]wink.gif[/img]

[EndQuest]

http://www.vicomsoft.com/knowledge/r...irewalls1.html

<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ May 15, 2004 08:12 PM: Message edited by: EndQuest ]</font>

[chaserfan]

I was amazed after I got my firewall just how many attacks on my computer it blocks all the time. without it I'm sure I'd be having some problems. In my opinion its EXTEMELY important to have one.

[Tr3s]

Firewalls lessen the chances of nasty stuff filtering into your machine. It's like having a physical even if you don't feel sick. Better have it than be sorry later on.

But it's entirely up to you. There are tons of information about it. Read up!

[Yig]

Does the firewall take up system resources while say, you're playing a system heavy game online?

[-megalithanod]

For you using dial up, a firewall isn't as important as if you have a constantly connected ip address (or a repetitive ip address) as those that are given with cable modems and DSL connections.

With a dial up connection, you will 99% of the time receive a different ip address when you connect.

People that will try to cause you problems will run scanners that report system names and ip address. If the scanners report that sucessive scans have given the same ip address with the same system name, the hackers (granted mostly script kiddies) will then hone into your system to try to hack into it.

I wouldn't ever consider having a home constant connection set up and not have a firewall. I also recommend that if you are running even a dial up that you runa firewall, even if it is a free software one as depending on the sies and email viruses that are sround now, it is oso easy to be infected and then transmit to others.

[Yig]

Your truth and logic anger me [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Damned soothsayers.

[sculpey]

Zone Alarm is free and works very well.

[-megalithanod]

Zone alarm is excellent, as for your friend that is going to cable, I would receommend that if he has the spare coin, to buy a hardware firewall. It is so much easier to manage and far better security due to it providing NAT (Name Address Translation). Plus, if he is going to ever think on hooking up additonal systems to a network, a SOHO firewall will also interface with a network setup in the future.

They can run from a simple one in the $25-35 range, up to a fill featured, 16 porrt unit in the hundreds. The cost of a meal out on the purchase of a hardware firewall will increase it's usability many times over.

[Yig]

Your words bring great wisdom. This has been a good conversation.