XP Firewall, Norton Personal Firewall, Linksys Router (BEFW11S4) Conflicts-HELP???

I'm really not sure who to listen to. Dell sells their PC's with Norton
Internet Security which includes the Norton Personal Firewall. Researching
the Symantec site, I came upon this:

Situation:
You have a LinkSys DSL router and it contains a firewall. You want to know
whether Norton Internet Security (NIS) and Norton Personal Firewall (NPF)
conflict with that firewall.

Solution:
The firewall in the LinkSys routers is called a Network Address Translation
(NAT) firewall. This firewall filters IP addresses at the router, which is
before communications from the Internet or other external network reach the
computers on your internal network. So, this firewall does not conflict with
NIS or NPF.

BUT when I inquired about that from Linksys, they recommended not using ANY
type of software firewall as it may conflict with their router.

I have a Dell Dimension 8250 with XP Professional/Service Pack 2 which has a built-in
firewall, which I have turned off because of this.

I have Norton Systemworks 2003. My Norton subscription is up for renewal. I was considering upgrading to Norton Systemworks 2005. The upgrade includes, for free, the Norton Personal Firewall. But I'm not sure if using it would cause conflicts. You can't have the XP Professional firewall, the Norton Personal Firewall and the Linksys router firewall all functioning at the
same time without conflicts, from what I've heard.

So I desperately need an explanation of what is actually correct as I got different responses from everyone. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF SOMEONE CAN EMAIL ME SOME FEEDBACK AS TO WHAT IS ACTUALLY CORRECT-WHAT ROUTER, SOFTWARE FIREWALLS, ETC. CAN BE USED TOGETHER?
I would be forever grateful!

 

I did'nt use the windows firewall, but did use nis versions 2003, 2004, and 2005
with linksys routers, and never had any problems, I think you can use whatever
software firewall, and router you find preferable, just do online security scans
after to check your security.

Good Luck,

Wake

 

Re: XP Firewall, Norton Personal Firewall, Linksys Router (BEFW11S4) Conflicts-HELP??

Can't exactly help you with your problem, but personally I have had troubles caused by Symantec programs, most notably Systemworks. I am not alone with this experience.

Since getting all traces of Symantec off my machine it has run much more reliably.

 

Re: XP Firewall, Norton Personal Firewall, Linksys Router (BEFW11S4) Conflicts-HELP??

afaik, i cant think of any routers and software firewall that conflict with each other. just make sure to disable ur windows firewall.

 

Re: XP Firewall, Norton Personal Firewall, Linksys Router (BEFW11S4) Conflicts-HELP??

You can safely use a NAT Router and/or firewall appliance together with any software personal firewall without the risk of conflicts. I don't know why the Linksys person advised you against adding a further level of security (a software firewall) as I have never seen any problems with that type of setup and is indeed what I have here in my office.

Where you will get conflicts is if you try and use more than one software firewall on the same PC, such as Norton Personal Firewall and Windows XP SP2 built-in firewall. You should only have one such program installed and running on your PC at any one time, although you can safely turn off the Windows firewall (leaving it still installed) and use another software firewall of your choice without problems.