What are the advantages of a hardware firewall over a software firewall?

How do I go about setting up a hardware firewall?

I recently upgraded a PC and have enough bits left over so I would like to try it.

Bevan Hound, Melbourne, VIC

A commercial hardware firewall is a dedicated small box that sits between your internet connection and your computer (or your LAN). It has a processor and RAM (just like a computer), a cut-down operating system with just enough features to run the firewall, and a firewall program in ROM. This bare bones approach minimises dramatically the attacks that can be made by a hacker.

A software firewall is a program that runs on a normal computer, with a normal operating system. While this is better than no firewall at all, the use of a standard operating system (such as Windows) makes a software firewall much less robust than a hardware firewall. The computer under a software firewall is also bulkier and more prone to crashes than a hardware firewall.

The advantage of a software firewall is price: the very good ZoneAlarm has a version which is free for personal use. Alternatively, you could run Linux on this box and set it up as a router/firewall - but getting all the settings right for proper firewall security is not for the novice.

It may be semantics, but what you are proposing to build is not a hardware firewall, but a dedicated computer (used only as a firewall) running a software firewall. While this will work, it is not as reliable (in blocking attacks) as a true hardware firewall, will be much bigger, will use more power, and will crash more often.

(There's a lot of information on the Internet about setting up hardware firewalls. For instance, try this Google search

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John Hepworth