Does a stand-alone Ubuntu computer needs a firewall to be installed?

You normally do not need a firewall in Ubuntu Linux, since the computer most likely does not have any Internet services such as a Web server. In addition, if you have broadband and a broadband router, you are already behind the router's firewall.

A more important concern would be to add security add-ons to your Firefox; adding AdBlock Plus to remove ads, and NoScript to control when Javascript in websites is enabled or not. I suspect the most common way that you would interact with the hostile Internet is through your web browser.

     On the other hand, you might want to look at question 80174 .... Fred describes a problem wherein a hacker seems to have gotten control over his computer - partially because he didn't have a firewall turned on.

Lol, err Ubuntu does have a firewall installed by default with standard settings to keep you safe. One reason you are already sfae anyway is because you are using a linux
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Antivirus
http://librenix.com/?inode=21

You can install a front-end for your firewall but people usually do this in order to turn off certain features if they are having a problem connecting to the internet or to help them turn off a few features to allow computers on a local Lan network to share files/services. Typically the usual front-end is "Firestarter" for the firewall ;)

For antivirus i usually use ClamAv but only really worry about it when i have a Windows system in the mix - the rest of the time i just go through the motions without expecting to find anything.

Good luck and don't panic
Regards from
Tom :)

Yes, the advice in

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/80174

is good. Try to keep reasonably well updated and don't leave your VNC remote access open. I would avoid having remote machine stuff at all on the machine unless i really needed it - it's not included by default. Also go to

System - Administrator - Login Window

Click on the "Remote" tab and make sure the drop-down list is set to "Remote Login Disabled" again this is the default setting so again there's only a security issue if you have been trying to set-up your machine so that people can login to your machine from a different machine over the internet.

If you need to let people have access like that then set-up a user with restricted rights and very few privileges, don't allow them to use "sudo" (ie don't make them a member of the "sudoers" group
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sudoers
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
Again the default when you setup a new user to to restrict their rights in these ways anyway.

Hopefully something here helps!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Thank you Friends..,I consider all this suggestions as valuable.