Router vs. zone alarm or just Router
 

I have been hearing that a Router offers good protection for your computer. We have DSL and I have used Zone Alarm in the past, but my hard drive just crashed and had to replace it, thus I have just reinstalled Win2000 and all my other programs. I am thinking now I should get a router and forgo the zone alarm ( even though I use the free version). I have nothing on my computer that is sensitive ( ie financial ) so I don't know how necessary either a router or zone alarm is. As far as virus protection, I use AVG anti virus which I really like. Any advise would be appreciated.

A router would be a pretty good idea. It's the easiest way to share a broadband Internet connection across a network at your house as well. I'm not a big Zone Alarm fan so I can't give ya any suggestions there. Routers are easy to use and setup with DSL, so I'd consider that before anything else.

-Lasereth

A router by it self will do nothing to protect a network. Well, that's not etirely true but for the home user it essentially is.

If you want to protect your network and the workstations on it you need to do a couple of things:

1. Make sure you are up to date on all OS patches for all of your appliances.
2. Change all default passwords.
3. Turn off all unused services.
4. Add a firewall. Zone alarm is a good home grade software based firewall, and will provide decent security for the most part. Better still would be a standalone firewall. I prefer to use BSD unix for firewalls.

Some SOHO routers include some basic firewall functionality, like NATTing, port mapping, and service blocking. So in that regard a router with these features would be a good idea.

-bear