deccan:
You don't want anything directly exposed to the internet, not even in a corporate environment. There's ALWAYS a router in front of a computer. Routers are pretty much MEANT to be border devices, though they do serve a purpose within the network as well you generally won't need to put a router anywhere but directly behind your WAN connection and won't need multiple routers.
My lan consists of five host PCs, a Linky router/switch and an Airlink 5-port switch. It looks like this:
Cable -> Router -> 3 PCs + Switch -> 2 more PCs
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If I used the first configuration and run a software firewall on the first computer, do I still need to run them on every individual computer? I prefer to spend my CPU power and memory on games rather than security software, so I'd like my programs to have as little a footprint as possible and as PvK suggests, only run antivirus and spyware checking software occasionally when I need them as opposed to having them in memory all the time.
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Software firewalls should be run on each individual PC, as they apply only to the PC they're running on. They can't make sure program X on PC Y doesn't talk out, because they don't know program X on PC Y is TRYING to talk out. Kerio is very light and quite powerful, definitely not bloated like other "user friendly" firewalls out there. Also, most software firewalls have a free Version which is quite sufficient, so it doesn't cost you anything.
Anti-Virus programs are another matter entirely. Real-Time Monitors vary widely between the vendors, and the detection rate of the RTM is often vastly different from the on-demand scanner. This is because to be effective, an RTM must have signatures loaded in memory. Thus, there's a direct corrolation between the memory footprint of an AV product's RTM, and that RTM's detection rate. Some AVs load a smaller subset of signatures for their RTM (in fact, probably all of them do
). If you're looking for a cheap AV for multiple computers, F-Prot by Frisk International is the way to go. For a mere $30 USD, you get to install it on every computer in your home. Compare that to the $80+ price tag of a 3 computer license from Symantec.
As for spyware protection, just switch to an alternative browser. Anything that is not just an IE front-end will do. Keep Spybot and Ad-Aware around however. You never know what's in that latest download from cnet, after all.
Atro:
Sure Norton scans downloads. If you leave the Real-Time Monitor on it scans everything it's configured to (which could be all files, or executables). Any RTM that scans on file creation, modification, or close will scan downloads real-time.