Im looking to buy a hardware firewall that allows me to block ip ranges and update them easily. Like the functions offered by protowall or peerguardian 2.

I Just want to reduce the load of my router & Pc handling unwanted data etc...

I know I could place a pc before the router and reduce the load on everything else and let that filter junk. But I really dont want to go down this route. Would just like a reasonably priced off the shelf box if possible.

Anyone got any recommendations?

Thanks in Advance.

I'm not aware of any hardware firewall that is compatible with loading in a blocklist but it would be good if they did. A linux box as a firewall maybe, but no idea if anything else exists.

My guess is they would fall apart just like everything else does when you try to stuff it full of IP's till it explodes.

This is why we have specific IP blocking apps designed just for large IP blocklists. Currently only 4 programs that I know of can really do it properly, Protowall, Peerguardian, Outpost firewall and Online Armor..

I use a PC as a router, instead of in front of one, and hook up all the computers to
the router equally on the LAN ports while leaving the WAN/upstream port unused.

That makes the old router into a simple hub, letting you do all the routing in the PC
you use as the gateway. Anything you do to defend that one computer, firewalls,
HOSTS file, whatever, automatically applies to all the rest. The controls are more
familiar too because you get to choose whatever OS and software you want.

A PC is a lot more robust too, capable of handling a workload that no retail router
could hope to handle.