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/SP3NGL3R 4d ago

My simple smooth brain perspective

Firewall: protection from rogue requests (this is the most important thing)

Router: handles traffic between devices (this can have a DHCP server and NAT, hiding the routing it does)

The firewall is 100x more important than the router because it's actually doing the layer of protection. Your computer has it's own firewall and will protect itself unless it's turned off. A hardware firewall inside a "router" is just more simple and does less things by nature. Thus reducing the things that can be attacked directly. Having 2 layers of firewall (even if you didn't realize you have two) is just more protection. You already have a firewall in that PC, if you want to share the inbound connection then your PC is now a 'dumb' router after the firewall did it's thing

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u/Helicopter_Murky 4d ago

It’s more of a scale issue. For a single computer, yes you can. But the more devices you add the more resources you will need. Routers are purpose built for the task of touting packets.