dave

...depending on what you plan on doing online

I had a Linksys BEFSR41 (the one mbpark is talking about). It worked great... except for when I was playing Quake III Arena online and then it would give me constant "Connection Interrupted" - my ping was still fine, i could still do +showscores (normally you can't when you get a real Connection Interrupted)... but I would freeze in-game. My friend Scott had the same problem. My friend Jarod had the same problem.

I did a lot of research and came up with an alternative. I bought it from buy.com and have been happy with it. Sold my Linksys.

What I bought is the Netgear RO318. The 8 means that it's got an 8 port switch built in - very cool. It works with DSL as well as cable (a few people I know have reported problems getting the BEFSR41 to work with DSL). It has good port forwarding, easy setup...

One of the biggest advantages, though, is that it's a true firewall. It's not just NAT - it includes Stateful Packet Inspection too. Getting port scanned? It knows, and it drops their connection - after logging their IP. DoS attack? Dropped connection. You can set it to email you the logs as well.

There's another feature that some parents will like - it includes keyword blocking. So, for example, you can keep your child from going to http://www.teeniefuck.com or whatever. (No clue if that's a real link - click at your own risk )... You can have it email you whenever someone tries to access a link you don't want them to. Or you can set it to email you whenever the log fills up - whatever. It's very configurable.

It's also a pretty decent price. I paid $150 for mine. You can get a 4 port version for cheaper, but I believe it doesn't have the easy web setup - you have to telnet. You might want to check out http://www.netgear.com and see.

Lastly, it has no trouble with quake3 - so I'm very happy with it