It will help monitoring your internet traffic, point out any suspicious connections, unusual bandwidth consumption and if there are any non-consensual tracking/telemetry done or was introduced recently and to catch malware.
Linux:
Windows:
macOS:
Android:
There are multiple options: AFWall+, NetGuard, Karma Firewall, Rethink. I don’t know which one is considered the “most” useful here, as I don’t have much experience with all of them.
iOS:
Lol no.
I think it would be more useful to provide information on proper hardware firewalls instead. With an emphasis on ones with open source firmware support, as this provides an indirect privacy benefit and allows for more budget solutions.
Not only will they provide much better firewall functionality but hardware solutions are going to be far less reliant on whatever operating system the users device runs on.
Regarding macOS, also consider Little Snitch (Software Firewall). Although it’s a paid software and proprietary, I find it to be superior.
I am interested in physical firewalls as well, but I know nothing about them. Are there any brands or products that are recommendation-worthy?
Disclaimer: I co-develop an on-device “firewall” for Android.
Debatable. The closer you’re to what you intend to block, the more surgical you can get.
OS firewalls are better because they have more context (see Little Snitch) about a given request.
This is also a reason why in-browser plugins work better for content blocking than OS/hardware firewalls. They’re that much closer to the content of the webpages.
True, though the limitation is, save for road warrior setups (like Tailscale), your hardware is staying at home, unreachable. Not workable for smartphones (or devices that roam, like notebooks).
I will concede on this point, you probably know more about firewalls then I ever will.
Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn’t a hardware firewall + browser extension be better then a software firewall + browser extension in most cases?
Depends on how much work the community and staff want to put into the section but obviously firewalls could be split into a bunch of subsections either by OSI layer, type, etc
I agree, I tend to believe though that securing the home network through a firewall is probably the biggest need for most people.
Yes, but more specifically:
A network-level (hardware) firewall makes total sense when you do not have much control over the OS (no root access). For example, Apple apps on macOS & iOS or Google+OEM apps on Android retain the ability to bypass user-set firewall/vpn rules, at will.