[KeyStroke]

Hi,

Do I need to use a Firewall for protection is I'm behind a DSL modem? someone told me it's not necessary.

or in other words, WHY would I use a Firewall besides Windows firewall? what kind of "bad things" would happen without a fully featured firewall?

Your help is much appreciated

[SoulCheese]

Well I'm not the best at this but, firewall's protect unwanted information from being leeched out. It filters your bandwidth and what you actual allow to access the internet. It can mask your IP and basicly protect you from being sniffer out, as hackers don't target people it's more like random selection as far as I know, and this just diminishes that chance. Also provides program control so programs that don't need to be accessing the internet to do so. I think it's necessary and I use ZoneAlarm firewall, they have a free one for download, but buying it's probably better.

And as for windows firewall, it's just cheap, windows is known for vulnerabilities in the first place, so I don't trust it. It doesn't give you the security options that other firewalls give you, and the amount of control.

[KeyStroke]

You mean I should install it to control outbound connections only?

that's actually the only reason why I have a firewall. But even without one, I still know what goes out of my computer since I don't install new programs often.

[SoulCheese]

For the most part, although things such as passwords for anything that might be particularly personal can be protected somewhat, but not entirely. Like I said all firewalls do is reduce your activity on the internet. And if something foreign is trying to access the internet that maybe you didn't install like a worm it will still needs access, or atleast that's happened to me.

[lunarlander]

Window's firewall provide only inbound protection. So hackers cannot get in directly. Other firewalls provide outbound protection as well. So if a hacker emailed you a evil attachment, and you executed it, third party firewalls will pop up a warning asking for your permission to let this unknown app call home to the attacker. Third party firewalls sometimes have some intrusion prevention capabilities and can stop worms. Also the logs of their firewalls are more easily accessible and understandable than the Windows' one. Third party firewalls are also intelligent about allowing outbound access - a malware that names itself iexplorer won't be granted access, because the firewall remembers the full path to the real IE.

I always advise people to get a router - even if you're the only PC behind the modem. That is because the router acts as hardware firewall somewhat and can hide the PCs behind it. If you don't get a router, you will find lots of scans in your firewall logs, cause hackers scan the internet for weakly protected PCs all the time. It is better to have that layer of protection and routers are cheap.