An ISP router gives every office the same basic box. pfSense replaces it with a real firewall you control - rules, VPN, reports - installed on a normal PC, free.
This guide follows the same path as the video: download the ISO, make a bootable USB with Rufus, install on hardware or in VMware, and finish the first configuration in the web interface. No command line anywhere. Along the way it adds the honest details a quick setup video has no time for - what the defaults really mean, where beginners get stuck, and what a fresh firewall still cannot do.
The dashboard of a healthy fresh install - WAN gateway Online is the first thing to check. Values shown are examples.
pfSense is a firewall and router that runs on its own machine and sits between your internet connection and your office network. Every packet entering or leaving passes through it, so it can allow the good traffic, block the unwanted traffic, hand out IP addresses, run a VPN and shape bandwidth - all from one web dashboard.
Two editions exist and the difference is simple. pfSense CE (Community Edition) is free and open source - this is what the video installs and what this guide uses. pfSense Plus is Netgate's commercial edition, bundled with their own appliances and aimed at businesses that want vendor support. The core firewall you learn here is the same; nobody needs Plus to protect a small office.
A firewall needs one port for the internet side (WAN) and one for your office side (LAN), so the machine needs at least two network ports. An old office PC with a second network card added works well. One single port can be made to work with a VLAN-capable switch, but that is an advanced trick - do not start there.
pfsense.org/download - never from a random mirrorJust like the video shows, open Rufus, plug in the pen drive, select the pfSense ISO file and click Start. Wait for 100 percent, then move the pen drive to the firewall machine and boot from it.
Read the warning dialog before you click - Rufus erases the whole pen drive, and selecting the wrong drive here is the one mistake that loses data. Check the drive by its size before you start.
Boot from the USB and accept the on-screen installer prompts - no command line is needed, exactly as the video demonstrates. After the reboot, the console asks you to assign interfaces: which physical port is WAN (goes to your modem or ISP router) and which is LAN (goes to your office switch).
Honest warning: if you swap these two, nothing will work and nothing will tell you why. The reliable test is to unplug one cable and watch which interface the console reports as down - that is the port you just unplugged.
Connect a PC to the LAN side. It receives an address automatically, because a fresh pfSense runs a DHCP server on LAN. Open https://192.168.1.1 in the browser.
admin and default password is pfsenseOn the dashboard, look at the gateway status. WAN should show Online - that means pfSense itself can reach the internet. If it shows Offline or Pending, the problem is on the WAN side (cable, modem, ISP settings), not in your rules. Fix the gateway first; everything else waits.
pfSense starts life at 192.168.1.1. If your ISP router also uses 192.168.1.1, the WAN and LAN subnets clash and routing breaks in confusing ways. The video shows changing the addresses - a clean choice is to move the pfSense LAN to something like 192.168.10.1 / 24. Note the new address before you apply it, because your PC must reconnect to the new one.
Out of the box, the defaults are sane: devices on the LAN can go out to the internet, and unsolicited traffic from the internet is blocked. That alone is a real firewall. But be honest about the limits - a fresh install does not scan downloads for viruses, does not block bad websites by category, and does not protect a PC that is already infected. Those come later, with packages and rules, one step at a time.
The video walks through the full install on hardware and in VMware, the first login and the gateway check, step by step on screen.
Watch Full VideoYes - pfSense CE, the edition in this guide and the video, is free and open source with no licence fee and no device limit from Netgate. pfSense Plus is the paid commercial edition that ships on Netgate appliances; a small office does not need it to run a proper firewall.
A fresh install uses the username admin and the password pfsense at https://192.168.1.1. These defaults are public knowledge, so changing the password is part of the setup, not an optional extra - do it in the first session.
Yes, if it has a 64-bit CPU and at least two network ports - one for WAN and one for LAN. An old office desktop with a second network card added is a very common pfSense box. Very old or power-hungry machines cost more in electricity than they save, so a small modern mini PC is often the smarter long-term choice.