Do I need a firewall

I have a Mac Mini and got cable. Not wireless.
I never notice, but do I need or got a firewall on my mac built in? If not, do I, or should I have a firewall on?

If so what are some good firewall software out there for the MAC's? I have OSX.

Thanks

OSX comes with a built in firewall, and i can't see the harm in turning it on.

The built in firewall is better then the norton one

Call me an ex-paranoid PC user ---- but I would not have any kind of a DSL / cable (always on) connection without a router / firewall in place -- check out Linksys - Belkin or - D-link

Ex_PC_Puke said:

Call me an ex-paranoid PC user ---- but I would not have any kind of a DSL / cable (always on) connection without a router / firewall in place -- check out Linksys - Belkin or - D-link

Click to expand...

You're an ex-paranoid PC user. You have almost nothing to fear with a firewalled mac directly connected to the internet.

I think you should have a firewall. A "wireless router" or other device with NAT would be good. I have very harsh feelings towards the OS X client firewall. Since I am not feeling the need to rant I will leave it at it does very little.

On the other hand I have not found a 3d party firewall that I like either. Brickhouse locks up my network every couple days. FWBuilder is better on Linux than Mac. Norton is awful. Coding ipfw by hand is tedious. If I had $500 to waste I would install Tiger server on my PB. Since I do not I will just learn to live with what I have I suppose.

How can I check to see if my firewall is turned on?

I do have a router, which Time Warner provided to me. Thanks again.

enter in the IP Address of the router, you can find this by looking in your network settings on the mac. Enter it into a web browser and you will get a "control panel" for the router.

Hummms. Now I am lost. lol

Newbie here.

More detail/ instructions on what to do?

Thanks

Open your system preferences.
Go to "network"
Go to whatever you use to connect to the internet, and click "configure"
Go to TCP/IP
Under router, copy the IP address
Enter that into the browser
You'll have to look around in whatever shows up then, all routers are different