Should I put a firewall on my gateway or each client? Or both?

[Jugernot]

My Win2k Gateway is going to be connected up to a 320k/240k DSL connection with two Win2k clients using ICS.

Should I put a firewall on my gateway or each client? Or both? I have the internet part of the network completely seperated from the LAN using NetBUI (LAN) and TCP/IP (Internet).

Thanks

 

[BCYL]

I am assuming you are talking about software firewalls like ZoneAlarm or BlackICE...

You should definitely put a firewall at your gateway. Since you have seperated the internet part from LAN part, it will be very hard for hackers to get to your other PCs even if they get through the firewall. So this is enough to protect your other PCs from outside hackers. But putting firewalls on all the clients also stops spywares from "phoning home" (at least ZA does), so this is another advantage. However, you have to consider that those firewalls MAY be spywares themselves... so you weight the risks and gains and decide yourself.

 

[Jugernot]

"However, you have to consider that those firewalls MAY be spywares themselves... so you weight the risks and gains and decide yourself."

What'd ya mean? You think Zone Alarm's maker is gathering info from computers it is installed on??

 

[BCYL]

There are rumors that firewall softwares such as BlackICE and ZoneAlarm are spywares themselves... If you think about it, it makes sense... What could be a better spyware than the actual firewall itself? There are a lot of debates on this topic...

I am not saying if these software IS or IS NOT a spyware. I am just stating it can possibily be a spyware.

If it is though, it can scan for anything from where you surf on the internet to account numbers and passwords on your computer and send them back to whoever they want.

I am just reminding you of the possibility and the danger...

 

[warlord]

Zonealarm won't allow your clients to access the web, it says right in the read me file that it won't work on a LAN, so go with blackice or something else.

as for the possiblity of spyware, I think that someone would have found that out by now. people are always breaking down software to look at the code so they can modify it. But I suppose windows could be telling microsoft things about me, its a possibility.