A wireless home network gives you the freedom to access the Internet from nearly anywhere around your house. You can look up a recipe in the kitchen or check your email from the back yard or get how-to instructions in the garage. You can also easily share files from a laptop or PDA to a home computer and access common equipment such as a printer or scanner.
Unfortunately, home networks face some of the same security issues big company networks do. Protecting your wireless home network from unauthorized electronic visitors (a.k.a. hackers) is critical. Software firewalls like the kind found at retail stores are really only designed to protect individual computers. A professionally installed hardware firewall is located at the gateway, the entry to your home from Internet, and offers a higher level of protection for the home network.