advise on basic router

nickcardwell

JasX wrote: »

-Despite all the above the BEST router you'l find you'l get for basic use is the freebie one you should be able to persuade your ISP to send you if you threaten to leave.
who is your ISP currently?

Very very good advice.

Chances are if its a usb device from your supplier, i havent see any isp's giving them out in a good few years (4+ )

Threaten to leave (get the MAC number ) unless they give you a better package including a non usb adsl router

cepheus

It is 'Fast' supposedly the best one around.

Every time I phone up with a problem, they tell me to buy a router.

I have also expressed dissatisfaction with their costs. They aren't supposed to throttle though unlike most.

Bought it now anyway

cepheus

Managed to change it via the reseller and grab a few more pennies through topcashback

TimothyEBaldwin

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Routers make your machine more secure as they include a hardware firewall and modems don't.

Can you provide a reference for the existence of hardware firewalls more capable than filtering on IP addresses alone?

Certainly typical home routers have no routing or firewall hardware, often consisting of a computer with a wifi interface and an Ethernet interface connected to VLAN capable switch. All routing and firewalling is done in software.

Also a router does not necessarily feature a firewall. Current practice is that most ISPs allocate one IPv4 address to a home broadband subscriber, which requires the use of NAT which apparently implies a firewall. However if an attacker is able to send traffic addressed to a computer to the WAN interface of the router (eg, by source routing, or by being on the same Ethernet network, or using 6to4 tunneling) the fact that the ISP has only allocated one IP address does not prevent the router forwarding the traffic to the computer.

The assumption that a router provides a firewall is an unsafe generalization, especially as ISPs start providing IPv6 and DS-Lite services.

Furthermore Windows Vista and Windows 7 have Teredo tunneling enabled to start automatically by default, which provides IPv6 internet access though most firewalls, which means one is reliant on the security of Windows Firewall.

NAT also poses a small security threat to peer to peer traffic due to ambiguity over which IP address to use.

It is therefore dubious that a router provides more security than Windows Firewall.

And finally most attacks are against clients, such as web browsers.

cepheus

If what you say is true, we might have a case under the trades descriptions act for the following manufacturers description

The advanced security protects both your wireless and wired computers from hackers and intruders......This router has a stateful packet inspection SPI Firewall

Cutting through the indeciperable jargon this is what wiki says:

A Stateful Firewall....keeps track of the state of network connections (such as TCP streams, UDP communication) travelling across it. The firewall is programmed to distinguish legitimate packets for different types of connections. Only packets matching a known connection state will be allowed by the firewall; others will be rejected.....

There is a risk that vulnerabilities in individual protocol decoders could allow an attacker to gain control over the firewall. This concern highlights the need to keep firewall software updated.[5]

Stateful firewalls also raise the possibility that individual hosts can be tricked into soliciting outside connections. This possibility can only be completely eliminated by auditing the host software. Some firewalls can be defeated in this way by simply viewing a web page (either with JavaScript enabled, or after clicking on a button

That last bit sounds ominous since that is how I think i obtained a virus last time. Surely however a harware + software firewall is better than just a software one, providing it doesn't lead to a false sense of security?

Perhaps I should disengage java completely for all but chosen sites?

PS I have XP

GunJack

@timothyebaldwin...

think you'll find most "home" routers these days have NAT and a firewall, and with a few clicks in the setup pages, will leave you better protected than pretty much ANY usb modem could ever hope to match....

cepheus

Well I have just installed it with some help from my ISP provider, it is hardly straightforward. The most alarming thing about this router is that it appeared to default to wireless than wired mode with all security settings off. My ISP said they wouldn't help me with this for legal reasons. No wonder there are so many people broadcasting their activities all over the place.

Anyway after trolling through the manual, I have managed to switch the wireless mode off and unticked the broadcast SSID box. Wireless modes are useless for people who don't have any other wireless devices to communicate with!

The wireless security settings are still off, is there any point in changing these?

I assume these routers don't require a logon script and everything connects to the Internet automatically as soon as I switch the computer on?

victor2

Well done - they can be a bit of a pain to set up.
If you have disabled the wireless mode then there should be no need to change the corresponding security settings on it as nobody will be able to connect anyway.
Now the router is configured, it should automatically connect whenever your system requires it, so nothing extra to worry about.

cepheus

Seems to be working OK at start up this morning. I'm getting faster speeds than my old modem as well, so looks good so far. Not bad for £8 and free delivery. Would have been better if it came with decent instructions though.

stephssjr

Boo the nice cheap routers have gone up to £35 does anyone know of another as I am lost as to which one I should be looking for I just want a cheap wireless router which I can use with plusnet and any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Steph