People wonder why they need a software-base firewall when they have a hardware firewall implemented in their broadband router. Hardware-based firewalls are more difficult to penetrate and are an excellent way of creating a blanket across the various computers connected to your network, whether they are Windows, Mac or Linux machines.

Configuring a firewall to enable traffic to flow in both directions, from each computer, isn’t easy. For instance, one machine may be the computer used primarily for your work, so may require limited Internet access. Another may be a gaming PC, which requires both inbound and outbound traffic. You’d need to configure your firewall so that it enables access to this gaming PC, but restricts access to the work PC.

The alternative is to employ a software-based firewall on each computer and then configure each computer so the firewall performs in a manner suited to that computer. Enable/disable ports and so on.

Lavasoft Personal Firewall is a tool that you can use to configure either your entire network or differently, for each machine. It has various pro-active preventative tools built-in to the firewall, so it will stop malicious software, protect your PC whilst you play games and more. Although the firewall is commercial and there are free alternatives, you can purchase and install on up to three different computers under one yearly license.