External firewall.

[niki]

The firewall of windows is not enough so one need to have a extra firewall protection and there are also hardware firewalls available where software firewall is not enough. But software firewall is enough for home purpose and not for business purpose.

[JenniP]

Software firewalls are fine, and as long as you understand the short comings of the Windows Firewall (The one in Vista is actually half decient) its perfectly acceptable.

Most routers no have built in firewalls advanced enough to keep a home or even office network safe if you close everything, once you start letting external traffic through thats where there danger it IE running a web site or mail server in your network that outside machines contact.

All Hardware firewalls are, are dedicated boxes that run software, its just the complexity of the software that differs.

Jen

[attagirl]

Nicely put. You have to look at the fact that no software is 100 percent perfect and yes there is other firewall software available that is much better for people to use.

[funtoosh]

My vote goes to routers with firewall and also the firewall provided by norton is very powerful.

[blasted]

My vote goes to routers with firewall and also the firewall provided by norton is very powerful.

The firewall that comes with Norton may be powerful however, norton is a large anti-virus software.This is the cause of many crashes and driver faults. This software for computers with small amounts of GB space does not do them any good.