Making your computer system safe has gotten easier over the years. In the past, when the internet started to become available in most people households, it was hard for these people to try and protect their systems. The online security field was young and even the professionals at the time did not know the breadth of attacks that would happen. Now there are plenty of tools for both the professionals and the amateurs to use to be able to protect their system. One of the best tools that a person who is either can use to protect themselves is a firewall on their system. A firewall offers you unprecedented protection from the bad guys online. In the following paragraphs, we will talk about what a firewall is and we will also discuss the difference between software and a hardware firewall.

What exactly is a firewall?

There are many different types of attacks that can happen to your computer when you hook it up online. One of the earliest types of attacks is when people would try to gain access to your computer remotely. They would do this by trying to find a weak port on your system. A weak port means one that is open with no protection.  If the black hat hacker did not go in the port manually themselves, they would send in a software attack, such as a worm, to go through it. When professionals saw that this type of attack was becoming more prevalent, they started to create software that would protect the end users from it. That software was known as a firewall and it is what we use to this very day to protect our home and work networks. There are several different types of firewalls out there. Many security companies add their version of a firewall to their software protection suites. But the main thing that you should know besides the brand of a firewall is the difference between software and a hardware firewall.

What is the difference between a software and hardware firewall?

The differences are quite simple really and you can probably tell what they are just by the names. A hardware firewall is a firewall that is either on a dedicated machine just for the firewall or on the home router that you just bought. Hardware firewalls are considered the best when it comes to protecting your network and your system. If you are only going to have one of the two on your system then I would suggest a hardware firewall be active. A software firewall is one that you install on your computer system. It is also very useful and depending on which one that you install, can be very effective. With a software firewall, you may have more configuration control than a hardware firewall. The problem with a software firewall is that some attacks can get past it easier than a hardware firewall. It is easier to trick the software on a user’s machine than on a dedicated firewall machine.

If you want the best protection on your system then we suggest that you have both a hardware and a software firewall installed. That way you will have all of your ports on both the system and the network doubly protected.

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