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Pragma · 08-23-2004, 09:43 PM

Honestly, as much as I'm a fan of isolating the firewall from the system being protected, hardware firewalls don't give you any big "extra" measure of security. Hardware firewalls are still vulnerable to exploit - flaws in the way they analyze packets, etc.

If you have the money to spend, and especially if you're protecting more than one computer, it's nice - but it's not a necessity if you only have a single computer.

trache · 08-24-2004, 06:19 AM

Pragma: That's true, but it does take the load of processing traffic from Windows. My FreeBSD machine took a beating trying to analyze traffic due to MyDoom, Nimda, etc to the point I couldn't use it (It is a P2-233 with 32 MB RAM but thats beside everything).

Yes, there exploits out there for hardware routers, but I haven't seen nearly as many exploits for them as I do Windows.

08-24-2004, 06:19 AM	#82 (permalink)
trache Insane	Pragma: That's true, but it does take the load of processing traffic from Windows. My FreeBSD machine took a beating trying to analyze traffic due to MyDoom, Nimda, etc to the point I couldn't use it (It is a P2-233 with 32 MB RAM but thats beside everything). Yes, there exploits out there for hardware routers, but I haven't seen nearly as many exploits for them as I do Windows. __________________ "You looked at me as if I was eating runny eggs in slow motion." - Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip

08-23-2004, 09:43 PM	#81 (permalink)
Pragma I am Winter Born Location: Alexandria, VA	Honestly, as much as I'm a fan of isolating the firewall from the system being protected, hardware firewalls don't give you any big "extra" measure of security. Hardware firewalls are still vulnerable to exploit - flaws in the way they analyze packets, etc. If you have the money to spend, and especially if you're protecting more than one computer, it's nice - but it's not a necessity if you only have a single computer.