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Firewalls explained in English: Salty
Firewalls come in two different flavours - hardware and software. A hardware firewall is the most secure version and would be used by large companies to protect their networks from outside attack from the internet.
A software firewall is more suited to a personal computer or SME (small to medium sized enterprise) and is much cheaper. (Free in the example below). They both perform exactly the same task. They sit at the forefront of a network or computer and all the traffic passes through them. Their job is to monitor this traffic and only allow authorised packets of data to pass through.
Okay having said that I always recommend Hardware firewalls over software ones even for Home Personal Computers, Heres why.
First off they are 20 times more secure and rarely mess up like Software firewalls can.
They cant crash your computer like a corrupt software firewall can.
They are completely seperate from the computer with their own power source, thus not draining much needed resources from your CPU.
Over the last couple of years hardware firewalls have come way down in price and hardly cost much more than a software firewall in alot of caes.
If your Internet connection is not working properly and you suspect the firewall might be mis-configured just simply unhook it from your network and then try to get online.
Reason I stress the above so much is that alot of times a Software firewall can get corrupted in such a way it prevents you from properly connecting to the Internet even after you have disabled it or in some cases even uninstalled it.
TIP: Get a hardware firewall and learn how to use it!
Message from the Salty one: If you have any Questions/comments /suggestions or you would like to contribute to NeoTech email me SaltyNetGuru@NeoTechCC.orgor AIM me at SaltyNetGuru.
