Well I been very curious about this setup and well, here it is. First I want to say im a 22 year old college student and very excited to move into my first apartment. And with that being said after I finish moving in my next step would be setting up my internet via my local internet service provider, I do not want the isp's home router. I want to use a pc setup with the firewall tool that is named IPCOP. And so I have a couple questions, im not using this setup for a small business, im using only for home(security and internet) use. So my question is this setup easy to manage for a home user and is replacing the isp's home router with a pc running IPCOP better for security? And as I stated before I dont have anything setup right now and other firewall setup suggestions can help me.


EDIT:To make post clear, i came to the conclusion with the help of Tentenths that first i need mandatory ADSL modem.
EDIT:I still have not recieved any replies on alternative firewall utilites.Any suggestions will be appreciative.

Depending on how your ISP presents your connection you may have to use their router as this will may also be a ADSL "modem" or the equivalent fibre / cable equivalent.

However, you would then be able to use your PC "behind" the router as long as you provision it with two NICs to allow other devices access to the internet. If you ARE going down this route then you'll probably need to disable the WiFi section of your ISP router and provide your own access point of some sort if you intend using wireless.

ive been using IPCop for years (over a decade now) and love it. have used it both for running small businesses and for my home. I have cable connection. That really only matters if the ISP sells you a "modem" when in fact they are installing a "Router" they are not the same thing, but typically its a simple phone call during install to have the tech change their router to bridge mode.

once that is done your IPCop will handle the routing as it is designed.

You might also look into the fork of IPCop called IPFire it is more up to date and will have better security patching as IPCop has not been updated in a very long time.

By far the easiest way to provide a first line of defense for your home network is to use the one built-in to your home router, after first having turned off the "Universal PnP" features. (Configure it yourself.) Then, turn on software firewalls in every computer that's attached to it, and be sure that meaningful security is enabled everywhere. That would be first ...