Opinions?

[HAL9000]

I have one client that I have set up a small home network of 4 systems. He went with a cable modem, so I recommended that he get a Linksys 4 port router to secure the network. Another buddy of his absolutely insists that he should run a software firewall along with the router and installed ZA on all 4 of the systems. I personally don't think this is necessary unless you want to restrict access amoung the 4 machines internally. Am I wrong?

[Xayd]

I don't see where they can have any added security from the outside with ZA, since it won't block anything the router firewall hasn't blocked already.

If they want to monitor outgoing traffic I suppose they could do so with ZA, though.

Xayd

[HAL9000]

That's the way I look at it. Anyway, you can monitor traffic with the Linksys, there is a setting in the options.

[Xayd]

Ahh, I see.

I could see their point with a router such as mine, I have an Efficient Networks router and it won't block any outgoing streams, it'll only block something that comes back on an "unsolicited" port.

Some people are just paranoid I guess ;)?

Xayd

[Statica]

The problem is that some people use redundancy & overkill as an means for safety. ZA does little or nothing more useful than the router will already do. ZA further more is prone to rather strange vulnerabilities: [<SUB>Raw search: http://209.143.242.119/cgi-bin/search/search.cgi?searchvalue=zonealarm&type=archives .. there are more elsewhere, list too lengthy</SUB>]

In essence the firewall should be one that while being secure and scalable in its ability to protect a variety of traffic, shouldnt be a deterence .. and I've yet to see a s/w firewall code for win32 that does any of it. A router on the other hand can be, used to do a lot of good things.