What are the best firewall options? Has anyone used Smoothwall ( Linux.com :: Protecting networks with SmoothWall Express )?
How about something to protect against browser weaknesses and attempts to install applications? I know on Windows this can happen easily without you even knowing. Is it the same on linux?
openSUSE has a very good default firewall. If you want to fine tune it, you can reconfigure it using YaST (which is all that any other program would do).
What about for other features, like:
Can you be more specific about what it is you’d like to accomplish with packet inspection? What problem are you trying to solve?
Linux doesn’t allow non-root users to install applications or make fundamental system configuration changes. So as long as you do your day-to-day computing with an “ordinary” user account, you’re protected in many ways. If you’re particularly concerned about safe browsing, you might want to consider using the NoScript extension for Firefox. However, this can prevent “good” code from running in the browser, too, so you’ll need to spend time building a whitelist of safe sites. Otherwise, parts of the web will seem to be broken.