[backhoe]

I had to take my old router with hardware firewall out of the circuit because it kept conflicting with my cable modem. But I just got a D-Link wireless router (DI-624) and it works like a charm. Now my kids and I can access the net with my desktop and three wireless notebooks all at once.

A LAN of some kind is a necessity these days, and the new wireless equipment is easy to set up.

Just for fun access the router log
( Check you manual, or try http://192.168.123.254/ )
and see how many "unrecognized attempts" are recorded- mine gets scanned by dozens every hour. It's a jungle out in netland.

When I reformatted & reinstalled on this machine a couple of months ago, the first thing I did was install AVG, then go to MS to update & patch the OS, and in that time, four different viruses tried to install themselves, despite the firewall in the router.

[Cicero]

I use ZoneAlarm, AdAware, Spybot, MS Antispyware, Spyware Blaster, and Norton AV. Plus I have turned off Messenger, locked my raw sockets, and turned off DCOM.

I just cleaned up one of my daughter's computers, and she had 65 pieces of spyware on it.

It's too bad, because having all those security programs resident in memory slows things down somewhat. Zone Alarm and Norton take a couple of minutes to load after bootup, as well. But you are slowed down a lot worse when spyware loads itself all over the place.