turning firewall off

It is a bad idea

Most modern routers have a DMZ setting that forwards any incomming data to a specific computer.

Not sure why you would want to turn the firewall off though.

Interesting experiment, if you have been used to using a software firewall such as ZoneAlarm or Norton check the log file with the router's firewall both on and off.

With the router's firewall on very little will reach the software firewall.

Geoff Lane

Hi

I used to have a modem supplied by tiscali and sygate's software firewall on my pc, I still run sygate with the router though. Does that mean I shouldn't run sygate no more because my router does the firewall job?

They check different things, The router hides your PC from outside eyes because it gives you a local IP address, can be configured to ignore pinging on the actual IP address, etc. You can configure it to block specific sites but you have to do it yourself.

A software firewall gets regular updates including known dodgy sites, known malware, controls program access to the internet, etc.

Use both.