Importance of a Software Firewall?

[Desral]

Hi. Before I begin, let me just say that I'm pretty much a tech newbie and, as such, am not clear on the exact functions of a firewall besides "blocking intrusions".

I am currently using Norton Internet Security as my anti-virus/firewall, and by reading around on this site, have found out that it's widely accepted to be terrible and a system hog (the latter of which I've learned from personal experience). Due to this, I've decided to switch to a new anti-virus and firewall...which leads me to my question in this post.

Basically, I'm wondering whether or not a software firewall is necessary over the Windows hardware firewall. Is there a significant protection advantage when using a software firewall? Also, are there any downsides to using one over the Windows firewall (slower internet connection speeds, etc)?

On a final note, I'm currently on dial-up; would a software firewall be necessary with this connection rather than only being needed with broadband?

All wisdom is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Going by the firewall poll, Comodo and ZoneAlarm seem to be the best... so I was thinking of a comparison between those two and Windows firewall when I wrote this post.

[luke992006]

get avg..i don't use a fire wall over windows (because i barely download anything) but if you are going to use one use comodo because zone alarm is a system hog (not nearly as much as norton but still more then others) and zone alarm isn't that great. In fact osiris posted a thread just today about the flaws of zone alarm... in the virus-spyware protection / detection section.

[Formerly the latter]

Go with Windows Firewall. You don't seem to need to do anything 'different' from the home user, and Windows Firewall is updated with Windows so if you get updates from the Microsoft Site, you will be updating your security.

Just go with Windows Firewall. It's a fine piece of software, and it will get you by without even making a peep. The same with the Vista Firewall except it is much much better

[Mak213]

I use a router with a firewall built in. I have yet to see anything actually get by that to attack me.

[kotto]

It seems that firewall is a good thing for corporate use, when it comes to regular users we really can do without any professional one just using built-in Windows firewall. As for Norton, let me tell you that once I installed it on my system I got a Trojan on my computer in 5 minutes. It just welcomed the malware with 'Hi' and the machine turned into a spam bot. I don't trust Norton after that. By the way, you may also try KIS - Kaspersky Internet Security, it turns off Windows firewall and enables its own, and this package is good on a Core2Duo system. If yours is older, do not use Kaspersky.

[gurusan]

Why are you on dialup?

[carnageX]

Originally Posted by gurusan

Why are you on dialup?

That's all some people can get besides satellite DSL (which is outrageously expensive).

[Eric1]

Originally Posted by Mak213

I use a router with a firewall built in. I have yet to see anything actually get by that to attack me.

Now that is probably your best defense.