Safety of open ports?

[bacardi23456]

I only have one open port in my firewall, and thats the one my p2p software uses.

My question, is how much risk is there with that one port open?

How much access is there to my PC through that one port (its something like port # 6991)?

Thanks.

[silentscream]

ooooo default lol

.

(winks at knowing users)

[Malakai1911]

Yeah for p2p software you usually want to try selecting a truely random, nonstandard port. pick a random number between 1024 and 65535. Preferably one on this list (http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers) that says "unassigned" for the range.

Don't worry about the open port so much. If I were really worried (and I am, it's good to be paranoid), I'd use a software firewall and that would take care of things.

[mountain_rage]

I could never get my ethernets built-in firewall to properly comunicate with my netgear router. When I looked on netgears site for answers as to any ports to open to allow them to communicate with eachother it didnt tell me anything. The problem is even more confusing as I can set my settings to accept everything and not block anything and it still doesnt work. The only way I can connect with my router and my internet is to turn off my firewall. So finally I contacted costumer support who told me I dont need a firewall because their built in piece of shit was good enough. Point im making netgear sucks.