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Written by Stew
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Wednesday, 20 February 2008 |
I came across this article on ZDNet by George Ou featuring a nifty wee product from Logic Supply know as a firewall appliance. The Perimeter B4 Firewall Appliance is essentially a very small Mini-ITX PC that uses a 1.0GHz VIA C7 CPU and has 3 Gigabit and 1 regular Ethernet network ports and retails for $291.
We're all familiar with the concept of firewalls - Windows XP has had a built-in firewall since Service Pack 2 - and what they do i.e. software that inspects the data packets flowing into your PC and inspects them making sure that unwanted or malicious stuff is kept at bay.
 A Firewall Appliance is piece of hardware that essentially does the same thing. Having such an appliance between yourself and the internet has the advantage of protecting you from viruses, malware and system hijacking without you having to run any anti-virus software on your host machine. This is a bonus to many who feel that anti-virus software can be obtrusive, sometimes slowing down your PC and essentially making it feel sluggish or unresponsive.
I have a feeling that more of these network appliances, and particularly consumer level firewall appliances, will come to market this year and beyond. Network security will become increasingly tricky in software - meaning ever more sophisticated solutions that use even more system resources - and as we have more PCs in our homes, a small device that consumes relatively little power (25watts or less in this case) and takes up no more space than a hardback book will eventually become a more attractive option. Simplicity will win out in the end.
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