Recommend a home hardware firewall

[Compman55]

I have a motorola cable modem which is just that, nothing else. I also have a linksys BEFSX41 that has a built in firewall but it is old now. What can I put in between my cable modem and gigabit switch that will be a good hardware firewall.

 

[JackMDS]

If your Internet Speed is Not beyond the capacity of the BEFSX41 there is No real reason to buy another Wire Router (unless you want to add Wireless too).

 

[yinan]

Watchguard XTM25

 

[ITJunkie]

Watchguard XTM25

seconded... if you have the money and security skills to configure it.

 

[holden j caufield]

pfsense, untangle, sophos utm. All free and very robust. Just run it on an old laptop with a usb ethernet adapter (you need two nics)

 

[RadiclDreamer]

http://www.smoothwall.org/

 

[Ayah]

Note: no such thing as a hardware firewall/utm/whateverothernames. it's impossible to build in hardware. it's always done in software.

for myself, I like free UTM OSes I can install on my own hardware:

Sophos UTM Home Edition is my personal first choice, as it's exactly the same as their full fledged version (whose price will probably terrify you) but unless you're well versed in networking/whattermyoucallthis, it'll be one hell of an uphill battle and it's what I use. however, it could also take you up to a week to eliminate false positives and to get it running perfectly depending on what you do. depending on the transfer rate of your internet connection and how many functions are active, it might require a decent amount of hardware backing it up. the only limitation for some people is the limit of 50 client IPs.

I used to swear by pfsense until I wanted more, so I turned to Sophos UTM Home.
I'd still recommend pfsense to the beginner, the learning curve isn't steep and has fairly low hardware requirements. 200$ CAD will get you a complete embedded/itx-type for it or just use an old computer.

Untangle free always felt light on features so I never bothered with it.

Smoothwall has no IPS (only IDS which seems pointless without IPS) which instantly knocked it out of consideration

 

[MustISO]

It's brilliant how in order to download the Sophos UTM home edition you have to provide a company name.

 

[JackMDS]

Hardware Firewall is colloquially refereed to as a piece of Hardware that you buy like Cable/DSL Router (with or without Wireless).

I.e., the OP is probably not looking to Build a Router from a stand alone computer loaded with software.

 

[Compman55]

Hardware Firewall is colloquially refereed to as a piece of Hardware that you buy like Cable/DSL Router (with or without Wireless).

I.e., the OP is probably not looking to Build a Router from a stand alone computer loaded with software.

Correct. Just a standalone box to due the firewall duty. My Linksys is nearing its end of life, and I have never had one last more than 7 yrs.

 

[JackMDS]

Almost all Entry Level Routers are Wireless Routers.

So, if you donot need Wireless any Inexpensive Wireless Router will do.

Example - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320158

Example - DD-WRT compatible - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320088