11-20-2003, 11:15 AM | #1 (permalink) |
Insane
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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.
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11-20-2003, 11:17 AM | #2 (permalink) |
Knight of the Old Republic
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
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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
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11-20-2003, 12:34 PM | #3 (permalink) |
Gentlemen Farmer
Location: Middle of nowhere, Jersey
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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
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Tags |
alarm, router, zone |
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