router, hub, switch....
- Thread starter Tommie
- Start date
The answer to your questions is very subjective, as many people will have different opinions.Tommie said:
In general, for file/internet sharing, the best router has some kind of hardware firewall with SPI (stateful packet inspection), is able NAT (network address transaltion) AND possibly (but not necessarily) can block outbound traffic based on a series of rules.
Most widely available routers these days do at least the first and second.
I personally own a Billion 7402VGO, which has all the above PLUS Built-In ADSL2+ Modem, A Wireless Access Point , Two VoIP Ports and and a VPN Server and 3 port VLAN/QoS Switch. A real bang for my buck!
The HUB/SWITCH has no bearing on security unless they have some kind of intelligence built in it (eg, ALL Cisco switches, except the 1548).
PS: Whatever you get it doesn't hurt to also install a software filewall on all your PCs on the network, incase some of your applications decide to call home
Hope the above helps.
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A lot of routers are reported to be problematic with file sharing, as their firmware never took into account the sheer volume of connections (a bit like the "half open connection" limit in XP). The FAQ's for uTorrent, and the forum, are quite interesting.
PS. uTorrent defaults to settings that ARE friendly in XP without the filesharing hack that raises the half-open limit, 8 connections "in progress" out of a maximum of 10 for Windows - the idea was to limit the rate at which certain worms could poll for targets, but anything that makes rapid connections is a casualty
PS. uTorrent defaults to settings that ARE friendly in XP without the filesharing hack that raises the half-open limit, 8 connections "in progress" out of a maximum of 10 for Windows - the idea was to limit the rate at which certain worms could poll for targets, but anything that makes rapid connections is a casualty