Sven Eriksen
Posted 6 years, 9 months ago
Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago
Up until now I have simply been using a cable modem for Internet Connection Sharing between 2 computers. On the gateway desktop computer I had installed NIS (Norton Internet Security 2004 Professional) whereas on my laptop I just had NAV (Norton AntiVirus 2003). However, NIS has not been a happy experience because I have had to reinstall it a number of times.
Now I have installed a router with a built-in configurable firewall (D-Link DI-704UP) and attached to it a wireless router (D-Link DI-524) which also has a built-in configurable firewall. This means I now have printer, file and Internet connection sharing between two or more computers. If the firewalls built into the router(s) can do the job I would like to give NIS a miss altogether.
Question: Do I need NIS any more or will NAV do on both/all machines?
Gordon Drennan
Posted 6 years, 9 months ago
Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago
Re: Router Firewall vs NIS Firewall
The purists will say the sort of fairly rudimentary firewall in routers isn't perfect. But all around the internet you will find people who when your question is asked say that when they got their router with its inbuilt firewall they turned off the software firewall in their PC and they've never had any problems running like that. Including me. A router's firewall isn't perfect, but it appears to be good enough. Maybe one day a hacker will come up with a way of attacked PCs through the firewall in a router, but they don't appear to have so far.
For the life of me I can't understand why anyone buys just an ADSL modem. It is false economy. A combo modem-router isn't much more expensive and it eliminates the need for, the cost of and the hassles involved with running a software firewall and with ICS.
Sven Eriksen
Posted 6 years, 8 months ago
Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago
Re: Router Firewall vs NIS Firewall
Thank you, Gordon for your response. The router manufacturer (D-Link) says that the router firewall is sufficient (but then they would say that, wouldn't they?) In any case, I have uninstalled NIS but retained NAV on all PCs. In addition to Ad-Aware and Spyware Doctor, I have added iHateSpam (an add-on to Outlook doing what NIS AntiSpam did). My Home network now works very well. It is much more stable now since a good part of it is hardware. Thanks again for your comments. Sven.
