Do I need a software firewall with a wireless router?
 

I've heard this is true since they have an internal hardware firewall but do they stop unauthorized incoming AND outgoing traffic and how do they determine whether it's authorized or not? Is there something to look for in the router specs?

TIA.

The router specs might mention a NAT firewall.
Depending on the setting of this firewall, it could disallow any connections NOT initiated from your network.
most (all?) routers do not block traffic from within by default.

Try the configuration of your router (usually a webpage, see the manual) and see what options it has.
I suggest using a software firewall anyway, especially for outbound traffic.

A router is perfectly fine, so long as you get all the latest updates, and securitiy fixes, for your os. As well as updating your Antivirus, with the latest virus definitions. Also, running a spyware scan often.

Router firewalls will stop most non-DoS incoming attacks.

On the other hand, few soho firewalls do anything whatsoever to slow unauthorized outoing traffic without extensive configuration by you, and many aren't powerful enough to be effective for this purpose. This means once on your system, malware has free access to the net. SP2 doesn't help in this regard.

Software firewalls are invaluable for identifying these unexpected outgoing connections and forcing them to ask permission.

Software firewalls are free and harmless. I'd pick one up. Plus, you'd see if you had a virus/malware when program allidigbwq.exe tries to access the network. :)

Thx folks. I wasn't having any problems with my setup but I thought I might be able to uninstall something. I'll keep the software firewall installed.

I use Zone Alarm on mine and it works pretty good. Like cyrnel said, it lets you know what is trying to access the web from your PC if you have it set up correctly.

I know there are other free firewalls out there, but that is the one I use and I have had pretty good luck with it.