Thanks......I think. The world of routers is as foreign to me as Wales
(G). I will get in touch with you to set up my D-Link wireless one.
But the mere thought of that is daunting, as one would say in the UK.

And FWIW, if you connect up a 3rd party firewall and/or a router, they
automatically turn the XP firewall off. Had that *argument* with one of
my genealogy forum geeks and he didn't know that either. But when I had
ZAPro on here (ptui!!) along with the router, I went to GRC and tested
them out together, 2 together and just the XP one. And guess what???
XP and ZA were better. So I just run with the XP firewall and stay away
from pron sites, lol.

XX Figgs

"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Hi
How are you connecting at the moment? - USB modem?
If so, then you'll find that using a router will make life simpler,
and (probably) faster as well, since you will be able to uninstall all
the rubbish that your ISP insisted you install along with the drivers
and connectoids for the modem.
DO NOT install any of the software that comes with the router - it's
almost always totally unnecessary.

David is right, in that the NAT function of the router is not a true
firewall - but in many ways it's actually better, as it requires
(almost) no setup (except in specific situations, like remote
assistance/desktop - which may be already enabled on many 'retail'
routers) - many of the quicker-spreading viruses of the past 10 years
wouldn't have got a foothold if the world had been using routers
rather than USB modems/dialup.

I routinely recommend to my clients that they uninstall/disable
third-party firewalls in XP/Vista and just use the built-in versions
as backup and to reduce the chances of drive-by (literally!) hacking
from wireless connections.


Points to bear in mind when initially setting up your router (NOT a
complete list!)
If you don't need wireless connectivity, either don't get a wireless
router, or disable the wireless options.
Initial setup is always best done using the wired connection.
Use the built-in HTML (web access) pages to manage the router, and
change the admin password to one of your own.
Update the firmware as soon as possible after the install - there are
usually fairly simple instructions for that on the router - especially
if using Vista, as some routers aren't fully vista-capable out of the
box (less so once updated).
If you do need wireless capability, make sure that you change the
SSID, use at least WPA protocol to connect, and use a nice long
passphrase that you can remember.
Don't try and get fancy with the control aspects of the router - it's
all too easy to forget that you've switched something off, and spend
hours hunting for software problems on a (new/guest) computer, when
all it needs is a couple of click on the router control panel (BTDT)!
It's worth enabling UPnP on the router (and in Windows) - this gives
automated control for certain operations/programs (such as torrent
downloaders) so that you don't have to configure exceptions to the
router configuration. If you do this, then it may become more
important to have a two-way firewall on your PC, since there's
otherwise no flags telling you what program is using UPnP to configure
the router. (I suspect that David would disable UPnP everywhere - but
IMHO, that's unnecessary)

--
Noel Paton
CrashFixPC

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
www.crashfixpc.co.uk
"PAT (Paul)" wrote in message
...
Hi all
I read Dapper Dan's bout with Router Firewall in this Forum. Since
I've used
this Forum for many years....here goes. Since free firewalls are
becoming a
thing of the past unless you go for those with 3 or 6 months 'trial'
periods
which you cant get rid of when the time is off, I asked for a ROUTER
for my
80th bithday in october. I was thinking, why pay 39$ (can) every
year, when
I can buy a router for 59$. I don't pretend to understand the full
saga
that Dan had, but I'd like to have your opinion about using a router
for a
firewall.
Or I'm I on the wrong track.
--
cogito ergo sum