Personal Firewalls

Are they worth having?

Are personal firewalls worth having?

A contrary view. Personal firewalls: essential? – or snake oil?

Not everyone agrees about the value of personal firewalls.

Some people believe that personal, software firewalls provide few real benefits.

For example, see what 'Sam Spade' has to say about it here and here.

Sam knows how networks function, so let's look at the points he makes.

Sam says:
for incoming 'intruder' attacks, having a NAT router is much better protection than any personal software firewall.

I can't disagree with that.
I mean, I don't how to hack through somebody's personal firewall, but I know that hackers consider them a challenge to be overcome, and sometimes they succeed.
I am vey happy to know that my router itself is a layer of protection and better than a software firewall.

Sam says:
personal firewalls can't distinguish very well between a threat and normal network activity: they present a lot of pointless 'alerts' to users.

It's true: personal firewalls can raise a lot of alerts about possibly suspicious communications.
As Sam says, these communications are probably not a real concern.

There is a lot of activity and communication on any network and personal firewalls can be quite indiscriminate about it. They pop up a lot of alert messages that cause alarm to users, although there is probably nothing to worry about.

I have to agree with Sam about this. I have used ZoneAlarm and noticed a lot of warnings when the 'Show Alerts' option is turned on.

So take Sam's advice and not worry too much about it.
After all, the alerts usually say something like “...detected AND BLOCKED communication from...”.

Also take Sam's other piece of advice: don't think you have to tell somebody (e.g. your network administrator, your internet provider) about every alert.
It just annoys them.

Sam says:
a personal firewall costs money but achieves little.

Sam says that a personal firewall only does something that you could do for free if you would learn about the network services that run on a computer, and learn how to turn them on and off.

I have to agree about the services. A network service that you don't use and are never going to use can just be permanently turned off. Then you are protected from any attacks that might try to exploit that avenue of communication.

Also, what Sam says here about firewalls is probably true: he knows more about networking than I do. He says you can learn about how networks function and protect yourself for free.

I agree – but this just seems impractical.

I mean, do you want to learn about the all network operations that might run on a modern computer?

Personally, I do. But that doesn't mean I already know enough about it.

I still haven't learnt enough.
I have been using computers for about 20 years, including both Windows and Linux systems, and I maintain a small network at my home/office. But there is a LOT I don't know about which network services may or may not be running on all the computers.

I am not going to learn about it all today, nor tomorrow. Because understanding computers is not my main job: my job is to do my work, I just happen to need computers to do it. If I need a piece of software to make up for my lack of detailed understanding, well, so be it.
Just give me the software.

• Remember these basic requirements to staying secure online:
• Making your browser more secure (or maybe using a different browser).
• Using anti-spyware tools. (A few.)
• Using an antivirus tool. (One good one that runs all the time.)
• Using a firewall. (Just one.)
• Using email safely. (Some antivirus and anti-spyware tools will monitor incoming and outgoing emails.)