firewall question

[Guest]

Someone has told me that running two firewalls on my machine will protect my machines even more. I'm running a third party firewall at the moment. They also said to run the XP firewall along with my third party firewall. Can anybody please explain, it doesn't sound right to me.

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

Someone has told me that running two firewalls on my machine will protect my machines even more. I'm running a third party firewall at the moment. They also said to run the XP firewall along with my third party firewall. Can anybody please explain, it doesn't sound right to me.

I see no benefit, and possible problems, with running two firewalls.
A good third-party firewall does everything that XP's firewall does,
and more.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Bob Willard]

I see no benefit, and possible problems, with running two firewalls.
A good third-party firewall does everything that XP's firewall does,
and more.

I generally agree but for one exception: if one of your firewalls is
built into a router, then a secondary firewall in each PC may be very
useful since the firewalling in most SOHO routers is limited to protection
only against inbound attacks, while software firewalls in the PCs also
supply some protection against outbound attacks (i.e., from Trojans).

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

I generally agree but for one exception: if one of your firewalls is
built into a router, then a secondary firewall in each PC may be very
useful since the firewalling in most SOHO routers is limited to protection
only against inbound attacks, while software firewalls in the PCs also
supply some protection against outbound attacks (i.e., from Trojans).

I agree with your exception, Bob. It's fine to run a hardware
firewall and a software firewall at the same time.

XP's firewall has no protection against outbound attacks, but
ZoneAlarm and others do.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com