Hardware Firewall vs Zone Alarm

I've been using Zone Alarm since moving to cable internet several years ago. I just installed a new wireless router, a Linksys Wireless-G wrt54g. According to the box it comes with the "powerful" SPI firewall. Any opinions about whether or not this is an improvement over Zone Alarm?

Reply to
JS
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The WRT54G is not a "true" hardware firewall.

Bill Crocker

Reply to
Bill Crocker

I have both WRT54G and ZA running since ZA gives me more control

especially over outbound traffic.

Reply to
Esquire

Your hardware firewall can prevent access to your network, but will assume that everything coming from the network is legit. That is where your software firewall comes in. When used in conjunction with your hardware firewall, zonealarm, sygate, norton and the others will keep you informed of what is trying to connect to the internet. I recommend that you Keep using them both.

Reply to
Doug Jamal

The thing to be wary of is something I ran across. A hardware (router based) and software (computer based) firewall are fine, but two softwares are bad/a no no. If you have (or upgrade to ) xp sp2, it has a built in firewall that has to be disabled.

Reply to
Peter Pan

The basic theory is, "defense in depth," or in other words, layered security. Thus, having a hardware firewall PLUS host-based firewalls (ie, ZoneAlarm, Norton, BlackICE, etc) is the right way to protect your machines.

Reply to
Jonathan

Good point. I completely agree. Only one host-based firewall should be active.

Reply to
Jonathan

This is an urban myth. I have run with Blackice and Zonealarm very successfully for years on the same box - first on NT4, then W2K then XPPro. One will intercept before the other, so typically one sees very little traffic, and only catches what the other misses.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

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