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A personal firewall (sometimes called a desktop firewall) is a software application used to protect a single Internet-connected computer from
intruders. Personal firewall protection is especially useful for users
with "always-on" connections such as DSL or Cable Modem. Such connections use a
static IP address that makes them especially vulnerable to potential
hackers.
Often compared to anti-virus applications, personal firewalls work in the
background at the device (link layer) level to protect the integrity of
the
system from malicious computer code by controlling Internet connections
to and
from a user's computer, filtering inbound and outbound traffic, and
alerting
the user to attempted intrusions.
Some people who have more that 1 PC may have a Router to connect the PC's
together which also acts as a excellent Hardware Firewall if these PC's
share
the internet connection. This works in the same way as the personal
firewall
(desktop firewall), however the firewall is inside the router and not
installed on the PC. A firewall ina router is classed as a 'Hardware'
firewall rather than a 'Software' firewall (installed firewall
application on
a PC).
In essance the PC's that connect to the router will have different IP
adresses
making it harder for 'hackers' to identify the address of a PC on that
network, they will only be seeing the IP address of the router as it is
between the PC's and the modem, although all firewall's have the ability
of
stealthing their internet IP address from potential hackers and internet
port
scanners.
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