Any reason to use a hardware firewall AND a sofware firewall

I hooked up a wireless router at home and will be using a laptop at work with a 802.11b connection. I know the router has a hardware firewall built in but I was wondering if there would be any reason to install a software firewall as well.

If there is a purpose then I won't mind but running it for no reason is just a waste of resources.

remember, the more security the better.

And it depends on how your hardware one was setup. Does your hardware one stop connections or does it inspect individual packets?

Also, try getting a firewall that has a 2nd ary purpose, like atguard (which blocks ads too).

I would recommend running a software firewall as well.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but my understanding is that the hardware firewall (router) will generally protect you from incoming attacks and the software firewall will generally protect you from outgoing connections.

The software firewall (if setup correctly) will let you know everytime a program tries to access the internet, and you can decide if you want to let it or not. This can be useful if you install new software and find out that it included some unwanted addon programs.

of course you know that wireless is very insecure by nature.

KFB said:

of course you know that wireless is very insecure by nature.

Click to expand...

I understand that wireless has vulnerabilities even with the use 128 WEP which is why I don't bother doing anything that I would consider 'dangerous' when I am on a wireless connection.

FunkyTechnician-

For about a week now I have been on broadband and been behind a cable/dsl router/switch, this has worked beautifully! I also run Norton Desktop Firewall, and prior to being behind the router, it would always alert me to scans and such, now that little bugger doesn't complain anymore, as I suspected. I will prolly continue to use the software firewall anyways, like Edward2 said, you can control what goes out as well. I prefer the Norton firewall over ZoneAlarm and others, mainly because of it's rule filters and very good logging, this includes web history. Even if the browser's history is cleared, it is kept in the log for review. IMO, some resources given up for extra security is not a bad thing.

regards

Great points jajmon,

I am running zonealarm on this laptop and Norton on my desktop.

But I definitely have noticed the decrease of alerts by my firewall since I installed the router. And I really wasn't thinking about the outgoing traffic at first so thanks to all for pointing that out.

Thanks to all for the advice.