Hardware firewall/router and software installed firewall/router.

which is better,and how come ???

how to get started to create hardware firewall/router ?

please try to use useful thread titles e.g "Which is better, hardware of software router / firewall" would have been a lot better.

Hi,

Hardware Firewall
1) Graphical Logs
2) Very good in Report Generation
3) Very Expensive
4) Some are not upgradable.

Software Firewall
1) More Cusomizable
2) Cheap
3) Freely Upgradable
4) Text based Logs

I recommend a Software firewall than Hardware....
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It all depends on what you want to protect and the losses you would incur when there is a breach.

You wouldn't want (wht not!) a top of line firewall product to secure your home network.
And you would not settle for a lowcost router-based a dedicated firewall which has fewer features to secure the network of a bank.

As Ppuru said it depends on what your intented use is.

At home I got a hardware firewall for the whole network, and firewall software installed on every PC.

At work I got a much more expensive setup, but single PCs do no have any firewall software. So it is easier to configure and manage. Besides not all users have Internet access but can only make use of resources available on the intranet, and everyone has to be authenticated against the domain.

just take a old computer and use that as your enw firewall: as for what is better, why not use both?

Depends what you mean by "hardware firewall". If you mean something like a home-level router, it's really just a software firewall in a nice package.

Only the REALLY high end routers/firewalls actually do the filtering in hardware. Everything else is just specialized firmware (e.g. software).

So for anything but the most critical systems, a software firewall is what you will be using. Of course hardware is "better" all the time, but it is more expensive.

If you mean a dedicated software firewall (e.g. a home router or a spare linux machine) vs a run-on-your-main-machine firewall, I'd build your own from an old machine. If you're here, you probably have the knowledge or the dedication to do it (Smoothwall makes it a piece of cake anyway, 10 min).

I run Smoothwall, and I couldn't be happier. I get great protection (I hardened it a little further than the default), great logs, and easy administration.