Anti-malware

Good to know. I use steam, Netflix, psn, with no issues. I'd rather add them as rule. Psn results in open nat. And I don't seem to have any bottlenecking on any devices speedtest.net reports full speed. You sound like you know your shit. I'm guessing you've heard about ddwrt. If not check it out. Thanks for the info. I think I'll do some tests with all software firewalls off and compare

 

Sorry I think you misread firewall as a LAST line of defense. And I totally agree. Stop the shit before it gets in. As for the DMZ zone that's where psn sits.

 

I may be picking your brain from time to time

 

It plays hell if you try to do any opening of ports to allow stuff into your network.

I use DD-WRT on my home router as well, a Buffalo that came preloaded with it. It's pretty cool 'cause it's free software that has a lot of the features I install at customer site's for thousands of dollars. I have ports 80, 443, a hidden SSH port, all for access to my server farm inside my network. Even hosting a website off my home connection! I do appreciate the compliment. I've been in IT in varying capacities for 5-6 years and have done about everything there is to do at least at a topical level. You're more than welcome to hit me up about any IT related stuff I'm always open to talking about theory and practice!

Also: I'm assuming your Playstation is in the DMZ? That's a symptom of a band-aid fix due to double firewalls . Ideally, you only allow ports necessary and nothing more. Hardening a system at the service level is far harder than saying "yeah so port 80 can get to you but none of the others can" at your firewall.

 

Interesting
I'll definitely do some troubleshooting once I have some free time that I'm not spending wasting life on this site. Thanks

 

Always gotta balance that "if I break this, how much time am I willing to spend fixing it" vs "it works right now, do I have to mess with it"

 

Story of my digital life!