Are there any risks or downsides to installing a firewall like Skynet or AiProtection?

[Nicoletta]

Most of my firewall knowledge is from decades ago when all a firewall ever did for me was slow things down and get in my way. Could have been for my own protection, but still was a pain. Even now I find that simple adblockers will get in the way and need to have lines added to a whitelist even when using regular websites and apps.

What does the firewall world look like right now? Will my family be asking why the internet isn't working properly if I decide to install a firewall?

 

[Vexira]

I run so protection 24/7 no issues and it has a white list for the rare flash positive

 

[predatorz]

Might block connection to website if the website IP is in ban list.
but if connection got blocked, will show up in skynet logs or AiProtection log (web UI)

 

[thelonelycoder]

Most of my firewall knowledge is from decades ago when all a firewall ever did for me was slow things down and get in my way. Could have been for my own protection, but still was a pain. Even now I find that simple adblockers will get in the way and need to have lines added to a whitelist even when using regular websites and apps.

What does the firewall world look like right now? Will my family be asking why the internet isn't working properly if I decide to install a firewall?

Skynet and Diversion are the perfect couple and a must have IMO on Asuswrt-Merlin routers.
They auto exchange whitelists, so if you have to whitelist something, you only have to do it in one of them.
Selecting a smallish blocking list in Diversion usually has no impact on web browsing, meaning there's nothing to whitelist.

 

[JT Strickland]

There are risks and downsides to NOT installing them IMHO.

 

[fields987]

Most of my firewall knowledge is from decades ago when all a firewall ever did for me was slow things down and get in my way. Could have been for my own protection, but still was a pain. Even now I find that simple adblockers will get in the way and need to have lines added to a whitelist even when using regular websites and apps.

What does the firewall world look like right now? Will my family be asking why the internet isn't working properly if I decide to install a firewall?

I started using Skynet a few months ago and have not had any negative impact browsing the internet or with connectivity of iot devices using the default list. That said, identifying and unblocking is well documented on here.

I also use nextdns with most privacy/security features enabled. What I’ve noticed on there is is you search for something and click on one of the sponsored/advertisement results, those get blocked. You can disable this or allow these ad domains but I’m retraining myself to scroll down past the ads in the search results.

 

[Wallace_n_Gromit]

Most of my firewall knowledge is from decades ago when all a firewall ever did for me was slow things down and get in my way. Could have been for my own protection, but still was a pain. Even now I find that simple adblockers will get in the way and need to have lines added to a whitelist even when using regular websites and apps.

What does the firewall world look like right now? Will my family be asking why the internet isn't working properly if I decide to install a firewall?

+What simple adblockers do you use? I use the browser extensions Ublock Origin and/or Ghostery. No problem there. Easily configurable. If a website doesn't render right go to the upper right side of the browser, right click on the extension(s) and Trust Site/Allow/Power off

+You also might try using a HOSTS file on your local system to filter content. I use https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

+Also do you know about private/secure DNS? Try a search for "Quad9 9.9.9.9" https://www.quad9.net/ or "Cloudflare for families" https://cloudflare-dns.com/family/ ... i.e. let the DNS filter out malware, adult sites.

+ And of course diversion, skynet, pixelserv-tls, and a lot of the amazingly great scripts offered in these threads.

There is NO REASON at all why you would not want to layer your protections. SO it's not a matter of doing only one over another, do them all!!!

EDIT: One caveat--sometimes my wife yells at me when she (rarely) can't get her websites to work. There might be some tweaking you must do, once in a great while, to get everything working on some (new) sites. A small price to pay for safe surfing, eh?

 

[Nicoletta]

+What simple adblockers do you use? I use the browser extensions Ublock Origin and/or Ghostery. No problem there. Easily configurable. If a website doesn't render right go to the upper right side of the browser, right click on the extension(s) and Trust Site/Allow/Power off

I've been using nano adblocker and nano defender. I love how easy it is to just turn off and on when necessary. Some sites absolutely insist that adblockers are off for them to function, other sites I like to support