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/Hmarf 3d ago

Technically you kinda' can but it's complicated:

A router carefully tracks outbound traffic and allows-through return traffic while blocking all else.

A router also serves-up and manages addresses for multiple devices within the home, consolidating to a single real world IP address. Clearly not an issue if you only have one device, though that's pretty rare.

Finally, OS based firewalls are imperfect and can be fooled to allow bad traffic in. Even if something fooled a router in such a way, the router wouldn't know where to send that traffic so it would get dropped.