You don't need it with your antivirus but I was just pointing out that some antivirus programs have them built-in. I doubt anyone would rely on a basic Windows firewall to protect them. :lol2:
The idea that firewalls have a different level of effectiveness is a myth. They all do the same basic thing, in the same basic way. They are all the same unless you have a cisco PIX router that costs thousands of dollars. Any firewall you can purchase as software will not be any better than a "windows" firewall. It's not a matter of relying on them. They all serve the same function and any attack against a firewall will be the same against all of them... Firewalls merely prevent network traffic from reaching your local computer. It's very simple and there exists virtually no attacks against them. Hence why I stated it's a "stateful packet inspection firewall". Every single firewall you purchase will be that...
Some free antivirus programs only offer limited protection though. In some cases a free version will only protect against basic viruses whereas a premium version will also detect rootkits, spyware and adware regardless of whether both versions have the same definitions or not. However, it all depends on what program you are using as they are all different. There are probably free versions that will cover everything too, it just depends.
Basic versions of antivirus do in-fact detect rootkits, spyware, adware, and all the others. Do you know how antivirus software detects them? It relies on commonly used hashes of various types of code that resembles common viruses and trojans, etc. Besides that, they have unique definitions and hashes for each new worm, rootkit, or anything else that gets released. If a rootkit can be detected by ANY antivirus or program, it will be in every antivirus definition database because it's public.
This idea that companies "save" better methods for detecting "rootkits" is a myth...
True, they won't help much for stopping viruses, but to help protect your PC from attacks then they are essential.
They are not essential to protecting your computer from attacks. Far from it. They were primarily made popular during the early days of buffer over flow exploitation..Which is essentially the ability to overwrite memory stacks to execute assembly code which lets a hacker take over your computer. Every single modern operating system, including Windows, Linux, BSD, macosx, and others, has various methods such as randomized stack locations, non-executible stacks, and so on. Firewalls serve almost no function in terms of security now. They are the least important aspect in any security system.
The only time a firewall will prevent an attack is if you have a vulnerable piece of software running, which has an open port on your local computer, which is highly unlikely.
