If you're protecting a *network* a separate firewall makes a lot of
sense. If you're protecting a single PC, it makes sense, but less so. Your anecdote doesn't really give enough information to be convincing. Were all six of your friends running the same services (or any at
all?). Did they all stay on top of OS updates? Was the one who was
hacked an avid game player (leaving ports open for Q3 perhaps?) Was he
running a visible web server? Without additional information the story
just fails to mean much.
All six of us have home networks making a separate firewall make a lot of sense as you said. I agree that I didn't provide enough information -- the poor hackee was running, as I recall, a firewall on Debian which simply wasn't up to the job. Straightforward mis-configuration and not keeping a critical package up to date.
Avoid LinkSys -- that seems to be the general message -- Netgear seem pretty good, they keep on top of updatesm, apparently. As a matter of course, we all port-scanned our home networks and tried to attack the few ports that are open.
I do agree with you. A Linux firewall isn't difficult to set up. And yes, I could've got a cheap PC (rdc.co.uk typically have them for next to nothing, and in sterling :-)) but the Netgear firewall is silent which means it doesn't annoy me when I'm listening to music, or just want to be quiet. Of course, what I may well do at some time in the future is simply get the Netgear firewall to forward everything to a PC and it can do that -- the ability to make it transparent was a key feature when I bought it.
I haven't changed my mind though. For someone with little or no experience setting up a firewall, go for something simple that has a reasonable reputation. Go for what your friends have and recommend, definitely don't take my word for it, or the word of anyone else on the shrike list!
jch
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