Hi. I wanted to know if it’s needed to install a firewall on a linux desktop/laptop. Why yes or why no?
Do you need a lock on the door of your place?
No, but it’s a damn good idea to protect whatever is in it.
That’s a bad comparison. Without a lock you can just open the door from the outside.
Yes, and hopefully you will have one preinstalled, blocking all incoming connections.
An outbound firewall like Opensnitch or Portmaster is also nice. But here I would say often you dont need one. Balena Etcher was the only App loading Ads, at all. Firefox and Thunderbird can be hardened. The rest is okay and doesnt phone home, Flatpak permissions ard also great.
Balena Etcher shouldn’t be loading ads. Where did you install it from?
Official website. They just advertise their own products which I consider Adware
You most likely already have one installed, but not enabled. It doesn’t harm anything (maybe you need to allow traffic to ssh or other configuration, but after that you’re all set) and it’s a layer of protection, specially if you need to move between networks (public wifi etc).
On Mint the firewall is enabled by default. Setting up firewall rules is pretty easy though, so it’s worth taking five minutes to read up on it.
Eh, the router acts like one. I have no open ports. On a laptop you use on the go I would use a firewall tho.
No - If you are aware which programs open incoming ports. E.g. check with netstat -tulpe
Yes - If you want to make sure e.g. TCP port 22 or a webserver on 443 etc is only available from IP/Adapter xy. Or if you want to mess with filtering outgoing connections.
