Do I need 3rd party security?

[cupp]

I'm a converted Btv user. It took some time but I finally have everything working. I have just installed placeshifter and webadmin. I have a d-link router with a hardware firewall. I have all my updates and windows firewall enabled.

My question is do I need to add a 3rd party firewall and if so which one, now that I have opened up some ports to the internet?

Should I also have a full time anti virus software program and if so, which one works well with sage.

I'm very happy with my setup, but I worried that any software that needs user input when I'm gone could stop my system from operating for my wife and kids.

I would also like to thank everyone on this forum for all their help and information. I'm very happy with my new system and wish I would have changed sooner.

[gjvrieze]

Originally Posted by cupp

I'm a converted Btv user. It took some time but I finally have everything working. I have just installed placeshifter and webadmin. I have a d-link router with a hardware firewall. I have all my updates and windows firewall enabled.

My question is do I need to add a 3rd party firewall and if so which one, now that I have opened up some ports to the internet?

Should I also have a full time anti virus software program and if so, which one works well with sage.

I'm very happy with my setup, but I worried that any software that needs user input when I'm gone could stop my system from operating for my wife and kids.

I would also like to thank everyone on this forum for all their help and information. I'm very happy with my new system and wish I would have changed sooner.

I usually never run security apps on HTPCs, too much downtime messing with updates and I never update Windows after everything is setup, I then lock it down (ie, turn off Auto Updates) and live with it working at 100%...

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by cupp

I have all my updates and windows firewall enabled.

As the previous person suggested, you might want to turn off auto-updates and instead manually install updates at regular intervals. You probably don't want your HTPC rebooting itself when you're not around. On my HTPC I set it to download updates, but not to install them.

My question is do I need to add a 3rd party firewall and if so which one, now that I have opened up some ports to the internet?

Probably not. First of all, it's probably not worth it from a risk perspective. I think it's unlikely you're going to get hacked or infected if you don't use another firewall.

Second, I'm not sure it would do anything useful. The one thing that another firewall could get you would be intrusion detection functionality. So, the firewall could be monitoring inbound traffic looking for attack signatures. But, since you're not really running any software that's particularly common, I don't think there's going to be many attack signatures that would be relevant for your system. So, I don't think a third-party firewall would really help you plug the potential security holes from opening the Sage ports.

Should I also have a full time anti virus software program and if so, which one works well with sage.

I think it does make sense, assuming you're computer isn't particularly underpowered. Antivirus programs shouldn't slow things down too much, because they won't bother scanning video files (at least, video files seem to be on antivirus scanning exclusion lists all the time). I do a lot of TV watching at weird hours, so I don't let my antivirus program do regular full system scans on its own, but real-time scanning is on.

I don't have a recommendation. I don't like paying for subscription fees for antivirus programs, so I've been running free ones for a while now. I'm not a big fan of either AVG8 or Avast right now, and it sounds like Avira AntiVir is good at detecting viruses, but doesn't remove them very well.

[cupp]

Thanks, I was thinking exactly what you folks said.