Firewallz... do u haz them

[luciusad2004]

Quick question. Do you guys use third party firewalls or the generic windows firewall?

When i was in school my first semester I had an assignment for computer literacy were they made us run one of those port scanners against our computers. I ran it against my computer w/ comodo firewall, w/ windows firewall, and w/out a firewall. Each time i got positive results. I inquired about these seemingly odd results in the Compute Science lab and one of the teaching assistants said it could be because I'm behind a NAT router. Anyway, long story short, it really made me doubt the necessity of a third party firewall beyond the windows firewall. So, what do you guys use, and have you ever had a problem? Do you think its absolutely necessary to run a third party firewall, or are you content w/ what uncle bill gives you.

[halcyonforever]

My current setup is behind 2 hardware fire-walls.

I couldn't exactly follow your situation so I am not sure what was causing the results you got.

[luciusad2004]

My current setup is behind 2 hardware fire-walls.

I couldn't exactly follow your situation so I am not sure what was causing the results you got.

How are the hardware firewalls working out for you? I thought about purchasing one but wasn't sure how easy it would be to work w/. Are they hard to configure? Does it ever give you any sort of trouble? Have you ever gamed from behind it?

[Quakken]

Shouldn't a router with ports that you select be enough against a normal attack?

Sure, it won't help against a hacker with a lot of time and a grudge, but shouldn't it be enough if you don't make enemies with computationally skilled counterparts?

[XcOM]

when i was at home i never used to have a firewall, i even turned off my windows one, i had two hardware firewalls, and i never had a single problem,

Where i am now, the entire network uses mcafee, and for me to access the other machines i have to use mcafee, and i also need to have mcafee firewall or the other machines won't let me in,

even though im behind 2 hardware firewalls again