Security against the Barbarians

While many people think that 400 bucks for a firewall is obscene, it's more obscene to spend 50 dollars on something that LOOKS like a firewall and is intended to protect your personal information, bank records and other highly sought after information.

The problem is that while the IT pros understand what the PIX is, the average consumer does not. A firewall is a firewall is a firewall. This could not be further from the truth. A quick survey of friends to how many times their cheapie firewall has crash, died, been replaced, rebooted or otherwise hammered give strong proof to the old saying "you get what you pay for"

THe PIX 501 comes from a long line of highly rated firewalls sold by Cisco. These are industrial grade units and backed by one of the best customer support structures in all of IT. THe code on the 501 is the exact same code on their big brothers used by Fortune 100 on down. THis common code gives you a well tested and stable firewall. Its a rare day that a PIX has to be rebooted or crashes.

The PIX can be programed by the command line (not for the weak) or something called the PDM which is a web based tool. Still, it is not nearly as friendly as a Fortigate or other newer design firewall but most certainly useable.

THe PIX 501 has two ports.. inside and outside. And 4 switch ports with a default 10 user license. And thats 10 IP addresses.

In testing I was able to max out my cable download speed of 2 Mbps through the PIX unlike my Sonicwall which tends to choke at the 1 meg speed. THe pipe will limit your speed, not the PIX. You can configure VPNs through or to the PIX which puts it into the good graces of the SOHO market. It's small, no fans, and certainly priced within striking range of comparable units from Fortigate, Netscreen, Sonicwall and others.

The final piece of wisdom is this. On bicycles, people cheap out to by cheap helmets to protect the organ we have that can not be repaired. Bad idea, is your brains only worth the 15 dollars from Kmart? Firewalls are the same. Is your personal data and operations day to day only worth 60 bucks? or since the average piece of computer equipment runs for 5 years bfore replacement, is your information worth 75 dollars a year?