om.newsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
> It was my understanding that a router gave a hardware firewall which
> was a million times better than a software one and gave you more
> protection.

Why should a ready made device, sold including a filtering software,
be better than a filtering software driven on your own box?

It can be better, if the included filtering software is better and better
configured. Or it can be worse, vice versa.

> I have a Belkin router, which like most other low end routers claims to
> have two hardware firewalls, SPI and NAT I think.
> So... why do I need a software firewall??

Do you need one?

> I can kind of see why both are necessary in my own head... but I'd like
> to hear what the experts have to say about it.

To what? To "Personal Firewall" software? ;-)

Yours,
VB.
--
MAC-Filtering bringt so viel Schutz vor "Hackern" wie Zeitungspapier vor
einer Atombome. (MAC filtering is protecting against "hackers" like newsprint
is protecting against a nuclear bomb)
- Christian Forler in de.comp.security.misc