What the heck is a firewall anyway? Actually it can be a number of things. What its primary use is to keep your computer and network safe from the nasty people out there. You know the ones, they steal credit card info, help you get infected from virus, try to trick you into giving them personal information, in general the type people you would like to see locked up. What a firewall does is put a specially configured computer between you and the Internet. All your browsing, email, downloading goes through this computer. On the Internet side it's like a brick wall. No one comes through that you don't allow. Now in and of itself, this hardly justifies the cost. Many of the basic appliances that the Internet providers "give" you when you sign up can sort of do this.  They're just not as good or flexible or secure as the firewall I install. Its name is OpenBSD and it's known by the computer community as the best. So what else can this do for you that makes it worthwhile? I'd say the most attractive thing besides top of the line security, is a VPN tunnel.  What a VPN tunnel allows you to do is go home earlier and more often and get to know your family. Have dinner. Spend time daily with your kids. Find out what they are doing in their lives. How does a VPN tunnel allow this?  Quite often our work days are long and we need to get done just one more thing and before you know it, you're eating dinner by yourself because it's 10:00 at night and the kids are studying or in bed.  So what you do is leave your computer on at work, turn off the monitor, and go home when you should. Spend some time with the family, eat dinner, and then turn on your home computer. A connection icon will be on your desktop.  When you click on it, you will see it contacting the Firewall at work.   A complicated "key" has been generated that only exists on the work firewall and your home computer. Once the key is verified, you have a secure "tunnel" between your home computer and your work computer. You can then log on the work computer and finish what you needed to get done. It's like you are sitting at work, but you are really at home. All the work resources are available and you don't have to worry about which revision is the last one. So you can get that extra work done, you just have to take a break to refresh yourself, spend time with the family, and then finish it.  You have to make the trip anyway to come home, so why not break the routine a little and be a better person for it.