Good choice for a hardware router/firewall?

[Nebben]

I've decided I want to purchase a hardware firewall/router to use in conjunction with Kerio Firewall. I'd like something with at least 8 ports, preferably, and perhaps something that will split my cable connection by itself. Can this be done with a "normal" router, or must I buy one specifically made for Cable/DSL connection sharing?

I understand the basics of hubs/switches/routers, but I haven't really used a lot of networking equipment myself. I took a bit of Cisco networking back in high school, but I really don't remember all that much

Are Linksys products generally the best solution for the money?

Also, my brother's running a Linksys cable/dsl router and he has some issues with things like file transfers via MSN, etc .. is there ANY way to get around that? I looked online and read that that's just a limitation of the software (?). Just seems a bit odd that you can't set up a simple file transfer... we tried opening the specific ports, but had no luck. Opening ports for any other program was no problem.


Edit: I'm looking at this one, what do you think?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=33-124-007&depa=0

 

[Rottie]

Linksys routers are good I am happy with Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless B broadband router but it does not come with firewall so I use ZoneAlarm Pro 5 suite.

 

[OmegaXero]

Technically, all routers that you buy have some sort of "firewall", even if it is something as simple as using NAT to hide the rest of your network from the internet. In my experience most routers end up being the same once you get right down to it, as long as you stick with your major brand names you'll be OK. I've always thought that Linksys had the best options of all the hardware routers out there however, DLink has some decent stuff too but their menus aren't as intuitive to navigate.

The issues with transferring files via MSN are going to be encounter with any router, this is simply how NAT operates. You could get around this by setting up port forwarding that will allow MSN to connect directly to your machine.

 

[Need4Speed]

$50 dollar pc and astaro...(or smoothwall, ipcop, etc)

 

[InlineFive]

I prefer the WRT54G series for around $50 because they include an SPI firewall. However, they do have known issues with some programs (the biggest is WoW).