Is a 3rd-party firewall really needed?

[sindhara]

I'm a bit confused. I've been told by my computer-savvy friend,that, since I access the internet a router, with anti-virus software on my system, I don't need a third-party firewall, since Windows' inbuilt Firewall, which I have switched on all the time, will do the job adequately.

However, if this is the case, why would anyone purchase third-party firewall protection? Am I safe?

[niKopol]

If people think there is a problem they will buy into anything.

I.E. Slimfast supposed to make you skinny when it has a whole damn days worth of vitamins in it. Which oddly enough probably gets stored in your body for later use.

Unless you have some uber cool stuff that you don't want some hacker stealing or you just don't care for something with the microsoft name attached I see no real reason other than preference.

I.E. I'd choose three meals a day that don't contain enough vitamins to support a cockroach over a can of tasteless chocolate imitation meal substitute slime any day.

[Eris]

Your router should do the same job as a customer-grade firewall would do. So getting one shouldn't make any difference at all.

[Gero50]

You should be more then safe if you're running a ani-virus program along with WinFirewall. Some security suites even come with their own firewalls though they're often very over kill for the home network. If you were going to try to secure your entire home network a Hardware firewall might not be a bad idea. For example, you might want to configure your router's firewall if it has one available that is. Though still even without that a home network or even just one PC running any version of Windows should be fine on WinFirewall and a third party anti-virus application.

If you want more security on your network you can always just install a basic Ethernet home network or if your home network is wireless try enabling WEP or WPA or any version of those to protect access to both your machine and the entire wireless network.

[Eris]

You should be more then safe if you're running a ani-virus program along with WinFirewall. Some security suites even come with their own firewalls though they're often very over kill for the home network. If you were going to try to secure your entire home network a Hardware firewall might not be a bad idea. For example, you might want to configure your router's firewall if it has one available that is. Though still even without that a home network or even just one PC running any version of Windows should be fine on WinFirewall and a third party anti-virus application.

If you want more security on your network you can always just install a basic Ethernet home network or if your home network is wireless try enabling WEP or WPA or any version of those to protect access to both your machine and the entire wireless network.

They're behind a router. Because of how they're designed, they are effectively a hardware firewall (unless you enable port forwarding.) It's only to open ports outwards, but other internet users can't establish connections to behind the router.

[Gero50]

They're behind a router. Because of how they're designed, they are effectively a hardware firewall (unless you enable port forwarding.) It's only to open ports outwards, but other internet users can't establish connections to behind the router.
This is true though if the hacked knew the SSID and a little basic knowledge about routers they could find out the login to the router and fully disable any security they had set up.

[Eris]

This is true though if the hacked knew the SSID and a little basic knowledge about routers they could find out the login to the router and fully disable any security they had set up.

It's trivial for the router to determine from which side of the network an incoming connection comes from, and even the most incompetent router designer should have the brains to only allow access to the router log-in from the inside of the network.

As for wireless routers, a hardware firewall will have no effect on local attackers. They can go directly for the computers using the network without involving the router or whatever you've got connected to it.

[Gero50]

It's trivial for the router to determine from which side of the network an incoming connection comes from, and even the most incompetent router designer should have the brains to only allow access to the router log-in from the inside of the network.

As for wireless routers, a hardware firewall will have no effect on local attackers. They can go directly for the computers using the network without involving the router or whatever you've got connected to it.
That is true unless the computers have security of their own set up to guard agenst stuff like this.