HARDWARE FIREWALLS

A Firewall protects your Computer from Hackers by making it difficult for them to connect.

Why do you need a Firewall ?

• A Firewall only allows certain Programs access to the Internet.
• Ports can be closed completely if they are not used.
• Many Firewalls have user feedback to help the novice user in deciding if the Traffic is friendly or not.

The problem with Software Firewalls is that they can easily be compromised by the incompetence of the person using the Computer. It’s amazing how people just click anything to make messages go away.

People don’t seem to realise the messages appear for a reason, they are telling you something. You can imagine it’s a common IT Technician’s nightmare they have to continually set these things up on numerous Computers.

Software Firewalls are very difficult to set up, you must manually tell it what to do every time a Program tries to access the Internet for the first time, unfortunately the receptionist is not capable of doing this by Herself (trust us, we have tried), and so using a Software Firewall would mean spending a long time setting it up. Also some people decide they will completely bypass the Firewall, because it is based on the Local Machine, and not notified until their Computer goes down.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could set one Firewall up, and it would do the same for the whole Network, well you can! You can use a Hardware Firewall to do just this. People cannot disable the Hardware Firewall as long as you keep your Server Room locked.

A Firewall sits in between your Computer and your Internet connection, a Software Firewall is not a Physical Device and is actually running on your local Computer. However you can plug a Physical Device in between your Computer and the Modem itself, this is known as a Hardware Firewall.

Hardware Firewalls are relatively expensive, it would be too expensive to consider installing one on a single computer, but they are cost effective for Networks especially for very large Networks.

Remember a Hardware Firewall plugged into the Network in this way will not protect against Internal Attacks like a Software Firewall is capable of doing, but normally you can take it for granted that Internal Network Traffic is safe, or at least safer than External Traffic.

There is a build of Linux that can run on a very Basic Computer (by today’s standard) that allows the Computer to be used as a Hardware Firewall. This is very interesting because the Linux distribution is Free and a Computer to run it on is very cheap.

This solution is therefore much cheaper than a dedicated Hardware Firewall.

Hardware Firewalls are good because they can be setup once, and the settings will affect all traffic from outside the Network. All external Traffic must pass through the Firewall before it can reach its destination.

Some Routers include some form of Hardware Firewall it’s worth checking out how you should use it, and if your Router includes one.

Let’s recap why Hardware Firewalls are sometimes better than Software Firewalls:

• If you want to protect a whole Network a single Firewall can be used to plug in between your Network and the outside world.
• A Hardware Firewall can be set up once and the settings will take affect for all Network traffic.
• A Hardware Firewall does not need any Software to run on Computers, so it’s easy to manage.

There are of course some disadvantages with Hardware Firewalls:

• It’s another link to add to your chain, if the Firewall breaks then you will get no Internet.
• The obvious Cost disadvantage, Hardware Firewalls are much more expensive than the equivalent Software Firewalls.
• Some Firewalls create a ‘Bottleneck’ it’s worth researching before purchase.

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Now matter what - For your Computers safety - we recommend that you have some kind of a Firewall implemented to your Computer. Take a look at our Software Reviews, which compare some of the Best Software Firewall Products on the market Computer Software Reviews

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