VANITY: What software to use for online security and to block popups?

I have a wireless network (D-Link router and NICs) consisting of 3 computers, all running Windows XP, sharing cable internet.

What's the best way to protect my network from viruses, worms and spyware? Two of the computers are extremely slow with lots of popups showing up when we go online(some are really disgusting). My son takes online classes that use popups. Is there a way to keep those and stop all the others from showing up?

All of you, computer savvy or not, should use the Proxomitron. It will work out of the box and protect against such things as popups and homepage hijackers. Run the install program, put a shortcut to it in your startup folder, and then set it as an http proxy on port 8080. To do this for IE go to tools, internet options, connections. Then click settings if you have a dialup connection or click lan settings if you have cable. Either way, the rest is the same. Check the box that says use a proxy server and then click advanced. Under proxy address by HTTP, type in "localhost". Under port, type in 8080. OK your way out and surf free of popups, ads, and other obnoxious stuff.

You will have an icon in your system tray. If you want to bypass the program and see the page as it would appear normally, right click the icon and select bypass all filters and refresh the page.

Another thing. If you maintain the browser proxy settings as mentioned above and the Proxomitron is not running, you will not be able to connect to the internet. You will either have to reverse the proxy settings in the browser settings or start the Proxomitron.

Finally, this program is a stand-alone meaning it adds nothing to the registry or do such things as install dll's in the windows directory. This means if you don't like it all you have to do is not use it and if you want to uninstall it, just delete its program folder.

It's available here:
http://www.proxomitron.info/files/index.shtml

The Proxomitrom combined with another great Freeware program called SpyWareBlaster will put up Class A shields on your PC.

I've been running Norton Internet Firewall on Win 2K for years, it does popups, cookies, and malicious attacks and seems OK. There was a large problem discovered with it last month and you need the patch.

Use Opera or another non-MS browser, that'll cut down on a lot of problems. Use MS Exploder only when needed (e.g., on sites that have special Exploder features that you need or want)

I use Opera about 95 percent of the time.

The freeware version of Ad-ware and SpyBot are very good for cleaning up the mess you already have, if you want protection though you need to pay for them. With the freewear version you have to periodically run them to clean up you system. It is amazing how many executable programs are out there that get into your system and run on your computer unknowingly. Run msconfig and look at startup tab, and you may be shocked.

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