A router is a hardware appliance which assigns a private, non-routable IP address to Wide Area Network (WAN) clients, in simpler terms, it hides your IP address. A firewall prevents unauthorized access to or from your PC, Firewalls come in both hardware and software configurations and are sometimes used in combination. Firewalls are used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing the data on an Internet connected PC. Firewalls are the first line of defense because all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic that pass through the firewall is examined, blocking traffic that does not meet a set of predetermined security standards.
