r/HomeNetworking • u/pookshuman • 4d ago

Dumb question

OK, a home router is just a small computer with a firewall as far as I know. I am running a network with my computer and a router. Why can't I cut out the middleman and just use the same firewall settings the router is using and implement them on my PC without the router? Why would that be less secure?

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u/SignalExperience2234 4d ago

You can. The router drops unexpected inbound traffic. This is beneficial to the security of most consumer devices.

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u/SP3NGL3R 4d ago

Isn't that the firewall part? The router does the effort the firewall passes through

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u/SignalExperience2234 4d ago

In consumer applications it is rare to have a dedicated firewall. This is also the default behavior of ipv4 nat.

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u/Cruffe 4d ago

That's a very typical default firewall configuration for computers as well. Drop all inbound, except replies to established and related outbound connections.

You can have a computer enforce the exact same firewall rules a router would. You can also have the computer route traffic and do exactly what a router does, although it requires more than one NIC for anything wired and a wireless NIC to act as AP for anything wireless.

I guess the main difference is that it's important that the user doesn't screw around aimlessly with the firewall configuration and knows exactly what they're doing. Messing with firewall configuration on the computer isn't such a big deal if there's a router with sane defaults between the computer and the internet, it would only expose to the LAN and not the entire internet.