Firewall Needed?

[Phaetos]

Had a thought this afternoon. Do you really need a firewall installed and running on your PC even sitting behind a router? I've always ran my Win installs without the firewall being on or the service even being started and have never had any issues.

What say ye?

 

[JackMDS]

Yes, you absolutely do.

Routers are one way Firewall. They can control most of the ins. They do interfere with whats going out.

Assuming that you use Win 7, start the Firewall and if you want real control install this on top of it.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_firewall_notifier.html

 

[paperwastage]

firewall protects side A from side B.

if you have an infected computer within your network (eg friend connected their laptop to your wifi), you could still get attacked

might as well leave the firewall active on the individual computers... unless you need to open ports on teh computers (for file sharing, ...)

 

[Phaetos]

Makes sense ..

 

[grendel19]

Really depends on how well you control your own LAN. I have a domain at home so no one in my family has rights to install anything except for me. Beyond that, all PC's have MSE installed to catch any viruses, etc.

In the 5 years or so since I've had this set up, I've never had an infected PC. So windows firewall is always disabled on my home PC's. From experience, having it off makes it easier to troubleshoot. But like others said, doesn't hurt to have it on.