Broadband is almost a way of life for most people, and the number of people "always connected" continues to grow each year. With this permanent state of connection to the Matrix, some form of cyber protection is almost required... or is it?

This week, we want to know if our members use any kind of firewall, and whether it is a hardware or software firewall. If it's a software firewall, feel free to let us know what brand you have.

I dont use any, well sorta. My own personall firewalls sorta, something not allowed it just gets port flooded back, Ya i know its most likely illegal, but hey,
if your snooping in my pc you deserve it.

i use just plain old windows firewall on my machine, and i use zone alarm pro on the server i connect to the net through

Panda Platinum.

Router/Hardware

and Outpost Pro software

I had to disable Norton Internet Security 2003 because it interferes with the downloading of work units from Stanford (folding). There is a known issue with NIS 2003 which apparently has been fixed in NIS 2005. Right now I am just using my Linksys router's firewall.

I kinda have a hardware firewall. My computer sits behind the colleges firewall that covers the whole network. But I use sygate personal firewall for added protection.

i use the windows firewall, i used to use nis 04 but it was blocking me from doing what i wanted.
-drew

Im using my old BlackIce even though my key expired (simple way around it involves time) windows firewall and then my dsl/router.

Trusty FreeBSD + IPFW. Moving to DragonFly + PF ... sometime in the future.

I'm not entirely clear on the hardware vs software firewall thing. Is there any reason why, if my box was dedicated to just firewalling, I couldn't call that a hardware firewall? That is, after all, just what those little expensive boxes do, isn't it? I supposed it's labelled a hardware firewall purely because it's custom hardware with a specialized O/S?

I built a little Pentium 233 box with Linux on it which acts as my "hardware firewall" for all my computers which then runs out to a switch to connect everything together. On my main machine I just use the Windows Firewall as the software end of it. My server sits on its own secure subnet called secure server network(SSN). If my server is compromised, the attacker cannot get to my local area network, but yet my local network computers can have easy access to the server.

i use my Linksys router, and XP Pro's software firewall

I use the nVidia Forceware Firewall that's built onto my motherboard. I also use Zonealarm. Oh, and the University also has a systemwide firewall, so I technically use 2 hardware and 1 software firewall.

norton on mine, norton + windows firewalls on my server.

I use Norton internet security 2005 + my linksys firewall.

I used Norton is '05 and my Linksys firewall aswell

I run zonealarm pro firewall very good. Also have firewall on my router/hardware(linsksys).

Umm, shouldn't "If I told you, I'd have to kill you..." be an option?

hmm i think i use norton 05

at present all i have is my trusty linksys router with its firewall

Its nice to see a large percentage off people using both a hardware and software firewall.. well done to all of you.

every since i switch my router (which is broken) with a linksys switch, I have not had any firewall. No problems so far and its been 4 days. Maybe nothing will happen as the antivirus stops all virus's. you know that one of the only ways to hack into a computer is that u must implant a virus onto there computer.

At school i Use BlackICE, at home i turn it off and just rely on my hardware firewall, within the time we have been on broadband...i have had 2 different hardware firewalls, but from the same co. and they work flawlessly

i'm at uni... so my router is just acting as erm... a router without the broadband part? (or is it a switch?) anyway, i have one computer connected to the student halls lan, it's got ZoneAlarm with AntiVirus on it, then it shares via a 2nd NIC to my router which is connected to the other pc's...

so atm, i only have software firewalling active because the uni network hardly has any port accessing allowed anyway... if i'm not using p2p then i don't get any firewall alerts logged in ZA apart from my DHCP and DNS servers...

when i use broadband in a house, i use the built-in hardware firewall of my router... and nothing else

well my cable modem has one, my router has one, and i use Windows firewall, and ZoneAlarm.... I think thats overkill....

i ahve 2 hardware firewalls and then zone alarm

i was testing one from cisco for a while.. it was a rack mount firewall, and it was nice, good http config also good config with telnet.. but i had to part with it.. i was building a network for a friend who is very very wealthy.. and.. so now he has that firewall, a xeon server that runs terminal server, with active directory and a roaming profile, with cat6 gigabit Ethernet and wireless ... .. fun fun fun..

rich people..

yea 2 of them

for the people that don't use firewalls but use an anti-virus, state if u had any previous problems. Cause i would like to know of this.

all i use is my dlink DL-604

In windows, I use the hardware firewall on my mobo. In linux...well, it's linux. 'Nuff said.

On my server, I just run Avast antivirus...to be honest, there's nothing on there I need to protect. If someone really wants to hack my server, then go for it.

Technicly I have a lot of everything. I have the main router and below that a second router which isolates the folding comps. I have ZAP on my comps and my parents comp has pc chillen, I think.

So in short: Yes a hardware & software firewall.

BTW those of you who said:
No, I do not have a firewall. & Umm, what's a firewall??

Please report to rules of internet life 101. Administered by KB in mondays.

Thank you.

Somone problay did it as a joke or picked the wrong choice when voting.

Or it could be possable somone does not really know what a firewall is.

I use Zone Alarm and Windows firewall.

I use a combination of a hardware firewall and Linux firewalls.