Linux

If your computer is connected to a network, I don't see any downside of enabling a firewall. It's a good security layer to have and costs basically no resources to keep running.

There is no reason not having a firewall

Yes, and hopefully you will have one preinstalled, blocking all incoming connections.

An outbound firewall like Opensnitch or Portmaster is also nice. But here I would say often you dont need one. Balena Etcher was the only App loading Ads, at all. Firefox and Thunderbird can be hardened. The rest is okay and doesnt phone home, Flatpak permissions ard also great.

Linux comes with a default firewall it's called IPtables/NFtables, Just make sure that it's on. Example I Ubuntu Sudo ufw enable.

Why not? It's comically easy to set up one.

Ironically enough if you do not know what a firewall actually does (and saying it "protects" against "stuff is NOT enough) IMHO you do need one. That being said unless you know what you are doing, better leave it to the default one with default settings.

On a laptop absolutely. My firewall on my laptop doesn't let me discriminate between networks so I'm always worried someone will try to attack me on public WiFi for the few ports I want open

On a desktop on a network you trust less important but still no firewall means if another device on your network gets compromised you're screwed

Do you need a lock on the door of your place?

No, but it’s a damn good idea to protect whatever is in it.

Yes, because while I trust my device, I do not trust the Chromecast or the WAP to not be an asshole and fuck with things.

I'd say if you plan on using it any public places, or if you don't have full control over all the computers/technology in your home network, it's a good idea to run one. It's a nice last resort should someone on the same lan have a piece of malicious software.

No, you don't. But it's also not necessarily a bad idea if it's not going to create issues for you.

Normally, a software package that wants to talk over IP and only wants to let local software communicate with it can listen only on loopback addresses (like 127.0.0.1). But I have definitely seen software packages that have defaulted to listening to the world (gpsd used to do this by default, for example, which would let anyone in the world who could talk to your machine see precisely where you were). Having a firewall makes the default to be secure -- you know that the default is not to be reachable, regardless of what some software author thinks is a good idea.

Most home systems these days are generally behind a NATting router, which effectively firewalls them against the outside world (though maybe IPv6 will change this), so they can't be directly reached from the outside anyway, unless a user has set up port forwarding on the router, the systems are effectively firewalled anyway, unless an attacker can get inside the network somehow.

It's one more thing that you're going to have to remember to deal with if you're installing software and troubleshooting network problems. You install software package X and it isn't reachable, you're going to have to figure out how to diagnose problems. As long as this isn't a problem for you...shrugs

I don't personally run firewalls on my desktops. But I have also, over the years, occasionally checked netstat -ntap and discovered that a service that I thought only listened locally was listening to the world, gpsd probably being the most-flagrant example.

If I were not behind a router, or if I were forwarding all ports to my system, I would be firewalling my desktop systems.

On a dedicated server, I'd be less worried, because I'm not normally installing tons of random software on the thing. If you aren't going to firewall it, though, be sure that you've checked to see what is listening on the server.

Its always a good idea. I have a firewall on my laptop since I travel and connect to many different networks.

I don't run any services that would be broadcasting open ports but its always better to be safe

You most likely already have one installed, but not enabled. It doesn't harm anything (maybe you need to allow traffic to ssh or other configuration, but after that you're all set) and it's a layer of protection, specially if you need to move between networks (public wifi etc).

No - If you are aware which programs open incoming ports. E.g. check with netstat -tulpe

Yes - If you want to make sure e.g. TCP port 22 or a webserver on 443 etc is only available from IP/Adapter xy. Or if you want to mess with filtering outgoing connections.

Yes, because you can forget what services are running and maybe they can be explited.

An example can be Syncthing which setting are done via web browser at port 8384. If you do not have a firewall, everyone on the same network would be able to change Syncthing settings and then sync your directories to their devices.

A sane firewall configuration should have no/minimal impact on a desktop focused OS.

On the other hand, sometimes programs are really badly made and expect stupid things like there being no firewall.

You should have one yes, but to each their own.

I manage a bunch of windows computers and regularly make adding firewall rules part of install scripts, good example: Dreamweaver.

Very few people do, you probably don't need to worry about it

If you are only at home you don't need it because the router already has a firewall. But if you're is using public WiFi definitely use it.

I still don't know what a firewall actually does lol. I just install nftables and ufw and hope it somehow improves my security. I just don't know how.