[raesene9]

I can see where the no firewall argument is coming from and definitely on my own Linux laptop, I try and keep the number of ports listening down as much as possible, but it is tricky and it requires a lot of vigilance as sometimes applications you wouldn't expect to, will start services. Things like Spotify and Steam can open ports.

So having a firewall running can provide a bit of extra protection in case you don't always check to see what ports you have open/listening.

[theodric]

What's the benefit to a traditional consumer application of opening ports these days, besides maybe for local network data exchange (which, I assume, is what Steam does since I know it will sync game updates between machines on the same subnet). I would hazard that the global number of laptops and desktops with public IPv4 addresses in 2024 is probably in the triple digits, given that basically every provider I'm aware of hands off with a "Wi-Fi modem" that converts whatever weird delivery medium (fiber, DSL, cable, etc.), gets its own maybe-public IP, and does NAT for clients. Hell, I don't even have my own IPv4 address since Starlink does CGNAT.