That's also why you should disable XP built-in firewall and stop using it since you
think you are safe, and use a true firewall and monitor each inbound
and outbound attemps manually yourself.
It's not as bad as it sounds, you actually only need to setup authorisation once for each program accessing internet. And it's much safer that way when you know how it works.
I myself use Zone Alarm. Free and efficient.
However, using a true firewall won't solve all your problems. For instance, I use IE and if I want to use it on the internet (duh
) I need to allow it to go thru my firewall. However, a lot of malware enter a computer directly from IE, that's why I increased my IE security and disabled Flash and Java entirely. And even then a lot of spywares and malware get installed on my computer, so I use Spyware Blaster to prevent them from being installed, and then use Spybot - Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware SE Personal to hunt down those that are already in.
I usually do a scan at least every week, and everytime I want to play an online game which require steady connection (which is usually everyday).
Even with all those protections, I am pretty sure there is either a virus, a worm or a malware in function in my computer because it always try to connect to internet before XP actually load. :angry:
The fact that you are using Firefox is really on your side, tough you can expect it to be broken as soon as it become too popular. That's why XP is so hacked, because 80% of the whole world work with it and it get installed in almost every new computers!