Every time I say this I feel like a shill because I worked for them briefly, but Sophos has a Home version of their UTM firewall (0). It has pros and cons, but overall I think it's pretty good (even after working there).

Some other options include Sonicwall and pfsense, and I encourage others to post their suggestions as well. I haven't used SonicWall, though I have used pfsense strictly as a firewall.

(0) http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-utm-h...

Any hardware solution recommendations - or things that will run on a RPi/router?

I don't like the idea of having to keep a desktop/laptop computer on 24/7.

I've been looking at this AMD-based barebones machine with dual LAN: newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107110

Reviews suggest pfsense runs well, and with 4GB RAM and a decent SSD one could probably run snort and squid as well. Probably about $330 all assembled.

Yeah, I saw that. Not exactly consumer prices are they?

Reading the forums there are some dual LAN Atom based mini PCs that seem OK.

Edit: Also http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Systems-C83.aspx has some preconfigured options at under $300.

Those are the same things.

If you do not want to financially support pfSense, you can buy hardware from Netgate directly, starting from $299. Even cheaper as a kit or with older hardware, but you decide for yourself whether it will be adequate for you. I'm planning on buying an assembled APU from Netgate for myself; right now I'm using m0n0wall on a separate P3 PC (Celeron 1000), modded for silence. Probably will try out pfSense beforehand, on a separate CF card I just ordered.

The Netgate APU2/APU4 devices don't appear to be available directly from pfsense. They do say money from them goes to pfsense though (and they advertise them on the pfsense site)

OpenWRT on a Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H is a another very nice and cheap solution.

There are some nice form factor cases out there now-a-days, and I would like to explore using those to make a firewall I could offer to friends and family to protect them too, but I'm just using an old desktop right now.

Curious as to why you don't want to keep a desktop on 24/7?

Desktops use a fair amount of power and almost always have some amount of noise associated with them.

Throw pfsense on an alix box. www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm

Yeah, I'd also be interested in some resources on outbound filtering your network.

I currently use a Mikrotik 750GL as my main router to the internet. In it i have a list of static DNS entries to send AD networks, and things like google-stats to a local http server to block the traffic. I also use it to block devices that i can not control from connecting to the internet (this is how i will block any "internet if things" crap). I dont need a internet connection on all the "things" in my house.

Also, there is no reason why all these functions should be built into a TV. I believe that the TV should be a monitor and thats it. We dont even need to have a TV tuner anymore. Just add 6 HDMI ports or more and I will add whatever function i want.

[Edited]

I use Little Snitch for OSX: http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

Glasswire: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8222652