KMA - Firewall question

[GM]

Anyone with an educated opinion is welcome to answer this...but KMA, since you seem to be in the know about just about everything computer oriented I've addressed it to you in particular.

My subscription for Norton Internet Security is about to expire. In the past year SP2 came out with it's own firewall. In addition, I have a D-Link Wireless Router on my connection, which appears to have some firewall capabilities of it's own. I'm wondering if I am "over-firewalled".

I am considering dropping my subscription to the firewall portion of my Norton subscription, but of course keeping the anti-virus protection. I'd like to know if you feel the Windows Firewall and/or the router will give me adequate protection on their own. Also, if the router has to be removed from the system at some point in the future, would Windows Firewall on it's own be good enough?

(Note: Until today I have had the Windows Firewall switched off as I was told you should not run two software firewalls. As a bit of a trial run, I have turned it on and turned off Norton's firewall to see what if anything turns up in the coming weeks before I have to decide).

Thanks in advance for your help,
GM

 

[Palmetto Pimp]

I am considering dropping my subscription to the firewall portion of my Norton subscription

Thats what I would do--waste of money

 

[KMA]

The only thing your Norton subscription does is allow you to update virus definitions as new viruses are discovered, which has nothing to do with your firewall. The firewall will still work fine after the subscription expires.

Your D-Link router is your best protection though. Any other firewalls yah might use are redundant. Yah still need to keep an updated virus protection program, but yah can use the free AVG program, which is better than Norton anyway.


If the router is properly configured, it will give you better protection than a "soft" firewall.

The best protection would be from a dedicated machine configured as a transparent bridge.