Firewalls

Does Linux need a firewall or not? (under windows I used zonealarm) I thought about this question and did some research, which didn’t convince me either way. At least this way I found out about iptables, firestarter and a few other linux firewalls. While confused about my available choices (doing nothing is also a choice), I thought I’d do a port scan to see if I actually need a firewall. I tried 2 free online port scanners: hackerwatch.org and auditmypc.com.
Hackerwatch tested ports 21, 23, 25, 79, 80, 110, 139, 143 and 443 and found them all “completely invisible to the outside world”, auditmypc told me simply they did not find any of the “common ports” open. Of course, you should also consider I’m behind the Commission’s corporate firewall…
By the way, auditmypc also had a nice “broadband speed test“, which gave me 4767kbps downlink and 3943kbps uplink. Not bad!!!

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