firewall linksys or Smart firewall

Hello everyone

I have a linksys WRT320N router, the router brings a SPI firewall should I use What?

1 - Router
2 - the smart
3 - both.

Greetings and thanks

 

If you really want security, i'd say both. The router firewall will only protect you from the outside, but what if someone connects an infected computer to your internal network?

 

Yep...use both my friend, it's safer

And I could suggest you a setup of a third party DNS server to your router like OpenDNS or NortonDNS to add additional protection for outbound connection

Have a nice day

BonskY

 

any other opinion, experience or suggested settings? thanks

 

Hello,

While the names are the same and there is some overlap, functionality-wise, there is a bit of difference in what your router's firewall does and the application firewall in ESET Smart Security.

The function of the firewall in the router is to prevent the ingress of network traffic that might contain malicious packets attempting to attack (or at least probe) your network. There is also stateful (as opposed to stateless) inspection of packets allowed through the firewall to ensure that inbound data streams are legitimate. There may also be some rule-creation capabilities, but these are typically limited to allowing or blocking certain addresses or ports to a given computer (or set of computers) on your network, or perhaps limiting usage to certain hours.

The software firewall, on the other hand, is meant to control both the ingress and egress of malicious network traffic from your computer. The ruleset for the personal firewall component of security software tends to allow more granular rule creation, with rules allowing for the control of specific applications or processes and perhaps even per-user rules as well. In the case of ESET Smart Security's ESET Personal Firewall module, there is some additional functionality for control of services and intrusion detection.

Since pretty much all residential gateway broadband routers perform some set of firewall and SPI activities, as well as NAT, you are pretty much going to get those functions bundled into the cost of the device you purchase (or may have already purchased). In the case of ESET, I would suggest obtaining a trial version of ESET Smart Security for evaluation and seeing if it meets your needs, works well within your environment and so forth. If you find that it does not, there's always ESET NOD32 Antivirus, which does not have firewall or antispam functionality.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky