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smoothwall VS hardware firewall

DrSpock

Member
Does anybody know how smoothwall compares with a hardware firewall? I am looking into installing a firewall and i don't know which is better, the software side (smoothwall) or the hardware side. From my understanding, hardware has always been more expensive than a software version, but it is also more expensive than the software. Any ideas?
 
Have you ever tried ZoneAlarm. It's free and many people use it. Very easy to use and works great!

g'luck
 
ZoneAlarm? That will depends on the purpose of him needing a firewall. I've never used ZoneAlarm, but I've heard to many horror stories about it (mostly about how it cripples your system after you uninstall it). From what I can tell ZoneAlarm protects an individual system as opposed to the firewalls he mentioned (Smoothwall) which is a "real" firewall that protects a network.
 
Zone alarm may work for a home, but not for a business. I have a network with multiple servers on it and i'm trying to figure out which is better, software firewall or hardware firewall. I have found smoothwall, which is a software firewall, but i don't know how well it works. I do have an extra box that will be used for a firewall only if we go the software route.
 
Smoothwall works well if you only have one IP address. But if you are planning to run multiple servers with multiple IP addresses behind the firewall and still want to go with the software route, try this script. I am currently using it with Redhat 8 as a firewall for a farm of web servers.

It wasn't able to do what I wanted to at first, but after getting help from the author himself I got it to do ISP like application with script. I believe the author posted the instruction on how to setup ISP like application with the script on his site now.

Did I mentioned that it's FREE? 🙂
 
Free is always good.

There are a lot of options in the firewall arena these days. My advice is typically to go with a GOOD hardware firewall but it all depends on what you need the firewall to do and what you intend to do in front of the firewall and behind it.
 
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