General Consensus on OSX Firewall

[rawd]

Whats the general consensus on OSX Firewall. It's not enabled by default and I never knew the option existed. Is it problematic at all, or prone to slowdowns. I am behind a home router

thanks

 

[realz]

Its a good idea to turn on the firewall, it doesn't cause any issues or slowness.
However, if you are already behind a home router than software firewall wouldn't matter much, unless you have your machine sitting in DMZ.

 

[Patrick J]

I turn it on. Doesn't affect me in any way.

 

[-aggie-]

I have it on as an extra safety measure. It doesn't affect my MBP's performance.

 

[yellow]

If you're behind a home router, you don't need the firewall. You're wasting resources on non-issues if the router has a NAT built-in (which it probably does) and if it's configured.

Beyond that, ipfw2 is pretty robust and you won't notice any resource loss at all if it's running.

 

[yg17]

I have it off. It serves no purpose since I'm behind a router.

 

[Patrick J]

It makes sense on a laptop, for the times you are NOT behind a firewall.

 

[maflynn]

I have mine off, I find it interferes with some remote desktop software and/or vpn software I run.

Given that I'm behind my router, I'm not overly concerned.

 

[rawd]

Thanks guys