HOW can I tell how many firewalls are run at one time ?

Answer 1

you can't. firewalls whether they are hardware or software based are "invisible" to all users, they are designed that way. If there was a way to tell what kind of firewall was in use that would be a huge security threat. an attacker would use that knowledge to target the weak links in that type of firewall, because they all have them..

Answer 2

In what sense? If you're talking firewalls running on your personal computer, you'll have to check manually to see what firewall software you have installed. It shouldn't be more than 1. Multiple firewalls do NOT help but instead get in each others way.

If you're talking about total number of firewalls the internet connection has to pass through, there is no way to know.

Answer 3

You can only run one firewall on a system at one time. If you have two turned on you will have a lot of problems. You will create instability in your system, either firewall will not be able to work properly and that is the least you can expect, the worst is a full crash or BSD-Blue Screen of Death. I strongly reccomend you decide which firewall you wish to use and turn the other one off, or if it is not the Windows Firewall, completely remove it from your system.

The Windows Firewall only monitors incoming connections, it does not monitor outgoing connections. This is not good these days. Vista has updated the Firewall too work in both directions, so it may be as good as any commercial Firewall on the market, but unless you have Vista I reccomend you select a third party commercial Firewall which works with both incoming and outgoing connections. You don't need to remove the Windows Firewall, in fact you can't, but you can turn if off. If you are using the Windows Firewall and a third party solution I am surprised the third party solution did not turn off the Windows Firewall when you installed it. Usually third party Firewalls are coded to turn off the Windows Firewall at time of install and activation.

Anyway, make sure only ONE Firewall is on in your system. Also, you can only use ONE Anti-Virus solution at a time too. You can use as many Anti-Spyware, Anti-Spam and other Anti-Malware programs on your system, just only one Firewall and Anti-Virus at one time or your system will become unstable, could crash and none of them will be able to properly protect your system anyway.

Now, you CAN use one software Firewall and one hardware Firewall. In fact, if you are using a Router you may already have a software firewall and a hardware firewall as most Routers these days comes with a hardware Firewall included inside the Router. It is ok to have both of these, as one is on your system and one is at the Router, which is not on your system but rather at the point of your internet connection, which is between your modem and the outside Internet Network.

Good luck and have a very good Holliday Season.

Answer 4

On your own machine? Should be only one. All over the planet? Millions.