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I use both, and would encourage it; given the creative 'bad people' out there that all Viruscan experts, Spyware fighters and so on work diligently to stop.
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I use both, and would encourage it; given the creative 'bad people' out there that all Viruscan experts, Spyware fighters and so on work diligently to stop.

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context is my brother has bought a laptop and is running xp2 and is getting cable ... want to know whether i should get him router to be secure
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context is my brother has bought a laptop and is running xp2 and is getting cable ... want to know whether i should get him router to be secure

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A router would be good if he plans to connect more than one system, as another consideration to share the bandwidth.
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A router would be good if he plans to connect more than one system, as another consideration to share the bandwidth.

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Thank you and best wishes. &nbsp;&quot;:0) Asta
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quick one ... how much more secure is a hardware firewall in a router than windows xp sp2?
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quick one ... how much more secure is a hardware firewall in a router than windows xp sp2?

xp vs router/firewall security on net

Software firewalls, also known as host-based firewalls, provide a layer of software on one host that controls network traffic in and out of that single machine. Most operating systems now include firewall software, but many available software firewalls include central distribution, antivirus systems and disaster recovery.

Software Firewalls

Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a protocol suite for secure Internet Protocol (IP) communications by authenticating and encrypting each IP packet of a communication session. IPsec includes protocols for establishing mutual authentication between agents at the beginning of the session and negotiation of cryptographic keys to be used during the session. IPsec can be used in protecting data flows between a pair of hosts (host-to-host), between a pair of security gateways (network-to-network), or between a security gateway and a host (network-to-host). IPsec is an end-to-end security scheme operating in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite.

Internet Protocol Security

Security is the protection of information systems from theft or damage to the hardware, the software, and the information on them, as well as from disruption or misdirection of the services they provide. The main goal of security is protecting assets, and an asset is anything of value and worthy of protection.  Information Security is a discipline of protecting information assets from threats through safeguards to achieve the objectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability or CIA for short. On the other hand, disclosure, alteration, and disruption (DAD) compromise the security objectives.