What exactly does a firewall do, other than make it harder to log into MSN? haha. Seriously, is it worthwhile or just a hassle? I have nooo idea.

Firewalls are designed to stop hackers form getting into your computer and shouldn't really hassel you going out in any way shape or form. Why not tell us the firewall you are using and exactly what issues you are having. Over the number of years i have been on DF i have tried and used various firewalls and never had an issue logging onto MSn or anything else. Now for the list of the ones i have used
Black Ice Defender
Zone Alram
Lockdown 2000
Sygates Firewall, both free and bought versions
Bizgaurdian
and Smoothwall

Bizguardian and Smoothwall are both firewalls that must run on a standalone, the others can be run locally..

so which one are you using Renovate?

Firewalls come in two "flavors"

Chocolate (Hardware) and Vanilla (Software)...

Most of the time they close all ports except 23(telnet) , 25(smpt) , 43(whois), 80(http), 58(xns mail), 47(FTP/ni ftp)...

Sometimes, if a black-hat is lucky, they'll leave open 79(finger) for the admin, but that's rare...

Also, if you're running a server, don't allow HTTP routing (changing 80 to 443 or something)... because people will need to put the new port onto your URL,
ie: www.you.com:443, ok?

And Chocolate firewalls usually have their own OS, when running an nmap OS detection scan you'll get something like OS: Cisco441.61 running X42 Kernel.

Yup, so, yeah, uhh...

just keep your IP secret, and keep the firewall up to watch for DNS and Ping-of-Death, and SMPT Nukes, and you'll be fine.

BTW, FUCK MSN.

I doubt that helped, but you never know!

I don't use em because they always blocked me from sending, and recieving files through msn, and yahoo. Pain in the ass ... really.

I use the firewall KERIO , does anyone use it?

I'm using ZoneAlarm...I don't know what the benefits and disadvantages are, but apparently it blocks a lot of "hacks" which is probably just noise on my network anyway...anybody else using it?

i know a couple people that use zonealarm, and have used it in the past myself. currently i am using Sygates free version

I'm currently using a combination of the Windows Firewall from SP2 and my router. Technically, all I would need is the router, but a second layer of protection isn't a bad thing.

While it's not the best, the Windows Firewall is sufficient for most people. Also, it allows more than just ports, but specific programs, so things like file transfers in IM programs and other things like that will work.

the built in firewall in SP2 still sucks. I would recommend that if your going to use that, then also load another one that will do a better job.

Sygate is outstanding. I'm also using the free version. I don't have the link handy, but I remember reading somewhere that it's 39.99 version had outperformed a Cisco hardware firewall in a few tests. Nice.

I use a router and Norton 2004 they seem to work pretty good and I agree that the SP2 firewall is a bad idea. I think that the best investment you could make is get a good router with built in protection.

by the way - never use 2 firewall programs at the same time - especially with windows firewall - they can conflict

I agree the windows firewall played hell on my system. I turned it off.

I was using ZoneAlarms free firewall, but I noticed that it was a major resource hog on my old ass computer, so I uninstalled it and now use my McAfee one that came with my virus protection. I also have a router.