Netgear router firewall question

Hello All -

I was recently dragged, kicking and screaming btw, into the late 20th century when I decided to abandon my dialup Internet connection. In more than four years I have had virtualy no "ISP-related" problems with my dialup connection. Well, short of cables being dug up by highway construction crews (twice in nine days) or an occasional lightning strike taking out my ISP's Alltel phone service (twice) and a drunk taking down a power pole. He only did that once. None of which were my ISP's fault.

I decided to go with a 'wireless' connection provided by our very local, very small-town Mom-and-Pop-owned ISP. I am a real newby to anything remotely resembling high-speed but since we have two computers that have to have a connection to the Internet I signed up for the wireless service and bought a Netgear RP614v3 wired router to get the job done.

After getting the router set up and running and the new 'network' established all is sweetness and light around here at 5-7 times the speed of dialup. Almost too (but plenty) fast (enuff) for this old man.

This router claims to have a double firewall with "SPI" and "NAT ". Acronyms are not one of my long suits so will sombody be so kind as to tell me what the hell "SPI" and "NAT" mean? And what the hell do they DO??

Lastly - I have been using Computer Associates eTrust Armor AV & FW for a while now and I intend to keep the AV. Will I be secure if I dump CA's firewall after the year of free use and still be protected with the router's firewall? Sounds like a dumb question, I know. But . . . I have always believed that the only truly dumb questions were the ones that weren't asked. And I have no shame!

As always, any and all help is greatly appreciated TIA


Mike

 

Thanks Steve -

As always, you have cleared away the fog and let the sun shine through. Don't know why I didn't think of that as I have Webopedia in my Favs. Must have been the time of day.

Thanks again.


Mike