Does a router act as a good "firewall" for my PC?

Answer 1

You're mixing a number of concepts together, which is typical these days since that's what the product manufacturers are doing.

1) You have a router and you have a switch
- A router only takes packets in one interface (let's say the 4 switch ports if you have a typical home router), decides where they need to go next, and then forwards them on towards their destination. That's it.

2) You have a NAT translation
- There is a process running on the router that takes your computers given IP address (192.168.0|15.0/24 in most cases) and translates it to appear as if it is coming from the 1 IP address that your interne provider gave you. It does this to make all of the traffic appear as if it came from a single PC.

2) Your router has filters

Most home routers have built-in filters. Filters do not equal a firewal, however, they're better than nothing. These filters do things like drop packets that you didn't already as for. Stop people from sending pings to your device (making you all but invisible).

3) Your router's firewal may happen to use SPI

The more intelligent portion of the routers filters would be more like a firewall especially if it does stateful packet inspection (SPI). This watches the packets as they go out of your PC and communicate with the remote host and only allows the replies that look correct according to how the protocol operates back in through the filters. If the remote system tries to do smoething funky to confuse your PC, the SPI won't allow the filters to accept the packet and the connection times out or resets.

4) Your computer still needs to protect itself.

With all of the above, your PC should be pretty safe from outside parties. You can check this by going to places like http://www.dslreports.com/tools) and doing a scan of your PC. It should come back blank unless you've messed with your router and opened things up (should not be necessary for 99.9%of people out there).

That said, you still need to protect your PC since although you now may not catch a cold from the wire, but you sure may bring it into your house via Email, websites, etc. For this, be sure you have a good antivirus product and preferably additional protections such as popup blockers, malware, spyware, etc.

Hope this helps to understand the layers that are inplace in a typical home to build up a security perimiter.

Answer 2

If the question is PC without firewall vs PC without firewall behind router... As long as you have in-bound attempts and scans dropped. Yes, your router will add a layer of protection. However, If you use default settings on the router there is a very good chance the router will have no effect on your overall security posture. Plus, remember to change the password on your router... the default account/passwords are written in the manual (user name/password documented in manual = surprisingly BAD security)

Answer 3

Router is the BEST firewall available and is way better than the best possible software firewalls, if properly configured. Again, if u want additional protection, u can have ZoneAlarm firewall (which is the best software firewall out 2day). It has a free version which is better than many paid ones. Anyway, Router is way better dude.

Answer 4

A properly configured router using NAT will act as an adequate firewall. You should turn on Windows XP firewall for good measure though.

Answer 5

A router is a very good firewall to protect against unwanted inbound connection attempts. Many people feel more secure with a software firewall that also protects against outbound connections, but they are so easy to bypass that any respectable malware will ignore the software firewall. And if that malware is already on your computer, you already lost the battle.

Answer 6

Yes. It will work best if you update it and set it up properly. Software firewalls are a drain on your system's resources. If you really feel the need to have a firewall on your machine then just use the Windows XP firewall that comes with SP 2.

Answer 7

No. this isn't a superb. that's a confusing and quickly penalty. therefore it isn't coated through the bill of Rights 1689. the idea of a confusing and quickly penalty is that that's a fashion of shopping for your self out of prosecution for a minor offence. in case you do not pay it in the wanted time, you'd be summoned to the magistrates' courtroom charged with the offence and they are going to be in a position to convict and high quality you. And the high quality will positively be more suitable than in case you'll in simple terms coughed up £60 in the first position. Plus, a confusing and quickly penalty would not seem on your criminal list. a superb does. magnificent attempt, yet sorry, if it develop into certainly "illegall and void" the courts might want to have said through now! Edit - definite, the bill of Rights remains in rigidity (even with the actuality that amended - the section about the monarch no longer being allowed to be married to "a papist" develop into repealed in elementary words very last month) yet as I truly have suggested, it quite is irrelevant. you have not been fined yet. I repeat, you've been presented a confusing and quickly penalty fairly to going to courtroom.

Answer 8

if you configure it correctly, than yes, but normally, no. Just to be sure, I would get a good up-to-date firewall on your computer!

Answer 9

No , u need firewall

Answer 10

it could stop basic multiplayer game and stop you from sharing a sever but you need another thing a router is not very good fire wall