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[DeathDude]

If you've got a cable or dsl connection and you don't use a firewall your really putting yourself at risk, considering the fact your always on the net, exposing yourself to the internet, with the amount of hackers, trojans and stuff floating around the net, it's a risk. Even if you've got 56k it's still a good idea to have a firewall, even though your technically only going on at a certain time, you still can get hacked and or worse during that time, firewall helps your comp especially in cases of spyware by allowing you to deny access to a program that may be calling out to the net, for maybe updates or whatnot.

[chickenman]

Theres a simple thing to stop all of this (well most of it) Get a new operating system !!
i recomend a Linux operating system, if your new to unix\linux\BSD try an easy to use one like Ubuntu (www.ubuntulinux.com FREE DISK'S!!) or Mandrake Linux im not saying to remove windows fully but just have another operating system to say surf the web and other things the good thing about these is that there VERY safe and most Viruses have no effect what so ever on these operating systems also getting spy ware is much harder with the default web browser being Mozilla Firefox also it comes with the best firewall ever made IP TABLES ! well it's not a firewall but it's just as good and more, So i hope i've made my point "Get a new operating system but don't dump windows"

[MdaG]

I only surf using Firefox in my Linuxsystem. I'm not sure if it makes me safe from all the crap out there, but at least I've not noticed anything wrong so far.

[Caged]

If you are looking to give additional protection during your browsing experience, the best bet is to use Firefox which gets the least number of problems.

To add to your spyware blaster, use Spyware Guard which is available from the same site and manufacturor and Spyware Blaster. The difference is real-time activation. It runs in the background. You could also give Microsoft's Antispyware Solution a good run and have its guards up.

For you who seem extremely paranoid about malstuff, downlaod and use the free version of Spysweeper which has so many shields and guards built in that you will never need to get another. I myself found it to be a little over the top and annoying.

[DeathDude]

Yeah I agree spysweeper is a good program to use, with all the shields and protection built in, has a very large database, only runs on a 30 day trial though that's the problem so once your 30 days are up you have to purchase a license key.

Another good program I've been hearing great stuff about is called Counter Spy, got a very good score in PC World magazine I think it was, it runs off the same technology ms anti spy runs off of, giant's engine, and it's been getting good reviews, think it runs on a trail basis as well for 15 days or something.