It's time to renew my antivirus / firewall protection however I now have a router and was told that I do not require a firewall as the router will effectively do the same thing. I do not fully understand why and I don't want to leave my computer unprotected. Can some one explain this to me (pretty, pretty please)

Most routers have a built in firewall that does the same thing that your firewall software does, although I do not know how advanced the firewall in the router is compared to the software that you may own.

Windows XP has a built in firewall that is free...

Thanks Fluffy. I have Windows XP, and I have Internet Security with the firewall and I have a router, so I guess I am protected.

With XP you can actually do a check to see if there any open ports that people can get through... I'm at work though and can't remember from memory how to do it... I can check later tonight if you want me too...

I just installed the new Norton antivirus/ firewall program and I used the Norton online tool to do an intrusion check and it found no vulnerabilities. But I am willing to run another check mr dando kast

You pretty much wasted your money buying Norton Internet Security. Your router has a built in firewall and windows xp also has a built in firewall. And NIS causes more problems than it fixes if you don't know what you're doing.

I actually bought NIS long before I got the router. but I have never had any problems with it as it is over 2 years that I have used it, however I think once this subscription is up I will just use the XP firewall and router.

Sorry about not responding earlier.... the check is actually done by:

http://www.hackerwatch.org/probe

http://www.hackerwatch.org/probe/?lips=c0a...4a6e0fb71b3f4aa

The second link is what it says for my comp(hopefully)...which is very well protected.