What are Throughput and Bandwidth?

What is a Firewall?

A firewall stands between your network and the Internet — for security. Every home network should use one. Since it's the place that all traffic from the outside world must go, it's convenient to concentrate security features there. Conveniently, it's also the place in the network that a router or modem is already. That's why networking companies often include firewalls with routers and modems.

NETGEAR firewalls are a combination of hardware and software. The hardware part gives NETGEAR firewalls excellent performance, while the software part allows firewalls to be tailored to your specific needs.

Things to know:

By default, some firewall features are turned off. For an explanation of why, see Improving Your Default NETGEAR Security. (The firewall features that are turned on by default, however, are still very useful to secure your network.)
Very often, applications outside your network require manually changing your firewall to allow them access. Examples are: online games, AOL, VPN, and Voice-Over-IP. See How is Port Forwarding Configured?
A firewall does not secure against every kind of data and attack. For example, you still need to run a virus-checker on all your computers.
Other products such as Windows XP create software firewalls. These can cause network problems, because they are trying to apply different security to your network, which other firewalls, including NETGEAR's, will not accept. See Disabling Conflicting Firewalls.
Firewall features vary by model. Newer and more expensive products have more advanced features. Firewall features are described in a product's datasheet. Configuration information is found in the manuals.

Finally, firewall is often used to describe the part of a network that is protected by a firewall, as in the phrase behind the firewall. Parts of a network which are outside the firewall are more vulnerable to attack.