after this last stupid virus(se.dll) im ready to go ahead and see whats up with a firewall. now someone told me once that if i go with a software firewall, it can do damage because it messes with the registry or something, is this true? i am looking for something free, and easy to use. i dont know much about firewalls, but with this last virus i want to try to protect myself as much as possible. and on another note, whats a good way to protect my ip address? can people in forums and chat rooms track me and possibly hack into my computer by being able to see my ip adress? how can i make it so they cant see it? anyways, thanx for reading and thanx for the help in advance.

As far as a firewall doing damage is untrue, it does place a key in the registry but does not damage anything I use Zone Alarm free firewall and it has been protecting my system for over 2 years now Zone Alarm pasts the firewall tests at Shields Up You can get Zone Alarm from here Zone Labs " IF IT AINT BROKE - LEAVE IT ALONE "

i do prefer norton internet security 2005 out of all the diffrent ones ive tried. even if i can get any for free trough work Mod it till it bleeds

First, a firewall will not stop viruses. You need a good anti-virus program for that. As to a firewall, the safest is a router with a firewall. ZA free works great.

Before you can secure your PC you have to understand what you're securing it against: Virus: A virus is a malicious piece of software ("malware") that is usually manually loaded to a PC by user action. that is, you get a "neet MP3 file" in your mail, try to run it, and it turns out to be a virus that does all kinds of nasty things to your machine. Or you get a floppy from a friend, load it on your machine, and one of the programs you load is actually a keystroke recorder. Some viruses propogate by using flaws in Internet applications (email readers, Excel, etc.) but the basic method of infection is the same: You ACCEPT the file, intentionally or no, and it does its thing, usually to your detriment. Worms: An Internet worm is similar to a virus in that it carries a payload but it doesn't require you do anything but connect your PC to the Internet to infect you: It exploits flaws in your operating system to infect your system. Generally a worm finds an active connection through scanning a range of IP Addresses and then checks to see if any internet ports on that machine are "open": can be used to issue commands to your PC. Trojan: Similar to a virus, it is loaded to your PC usually through your own action and resides in memory, waiting for either a remote command or a time of day or some key input by you to detonate its payload. A keylogger is a common example of a trojan: It records keystrokes and periodically emails these home, in hopes that it captures your passwords or financial data. Spyware: Similar to trojans, spyware resides on your PC and periodically "phones home" with personal data about it. The main problem with spyware is that it is intrusive, eats up system resources, and can redirect your browser to site that you wouldn't normally want to visit. Spyware is usually poorly written and can damage your OS, making it impossible or difficult to install/execute programs you want to use. There is no single method of defending against all of these: it requires a combination of a good firewall, AV program, and spyware detector. There's no all-in-one package to protect against these threats. Sometimes the damage is irreversable; you have to format and reinstall your OS and programs to undo the damage even if your defensive program discovers the intrusion. The first line of defense is a firewall, either software (Norton Firewall, Tiny, Zonealarm, etc.) installed to your PC or a hardware firewall installed to a router or server through which you connect to the Internet. Hardware firewalls are better than software firewalls because hackers can't even "see" your PC or local network to hack into it. For best defense a home user should buy a router and connect his PC(s) behind it. The cost is about the same as a good, commercial software firewall and you can build a local area network behind it. The next line of defense is a good Antivirus program such as Symantic Antivirus or NetGuard. Whatever AV you pick make sure you get the right to periodic updates and set up your AV to update at least daily. While most AV vendors issue weekly updates they will issue "emergency" updates in response to a new threat. It costs you about a millisecond of Internet time to connect to their server and check for updates; it's well worth checking daily. How often you run AV scans is a matter of personal taste: my LAN is up 24/7 so I run a nightly scan, after I've normally gone to bed. Once a week or right after you've installed updates is a good rule of thumb. These days a good spyware detector is a matter of survival. Spyware isn't *usually* intended to be malicious but it's often poorly coded and eats up inordinate system resources. Plus some malware changes your homepage to porn sites, adds porn links to your Favorites, and does other obnoxious things that your mother wouldn't approve of. Few AV programs look for spyware yet so you need to pick up a separate package. I use Spysweeper, there are other vendors. Whatever make sure you get daily or weekly updates with your program. On top of this you need to periodically backup your hard drive. Mirror your HD weekly to a disc or tape so that if something does get by your defenses you can easily recover from the previous week's backup. The final line of defense is that gray goo between your ears. Keep your AV and spyware detector up to date, run backups, and don't install ANYTHING to your PC w/o scanning it for malware first. Check the Windows update center regularly or set your PC to automatically d/l new updates from Microsoft (if you use WinDoze).

I like the three ring defense. An outer ring away from the computer that consists of an ISP who has Anti-Virus screening of its e-mail servers and does traffic monitoring and blocking on their network to stop worms and such from spreading. Along with a good stealth hardware firewall router. (No Wi-Fi router.) The inner most ring is a simple virus scanner, closed TCP/IP ports by reconfiguring the Network bindings per grc.com, strong passwords, removal of all traces of Outlook Express and its relatives, with a safe "old" e-mail program, no neat communications and MS-anything connections, plus all of the Security Updates. Few programs, not even any ISP supplied software. Along with routine scans with AV, Ad-Aware, Spybot and a few others. But the most important "ring" is the one just outside the computer in front of the display and over the keyboard. The ring that jerks my fingers away from typing in suspect URL's, clicking on neat icons and links, and in general keeps me from doing anything stupid.

yea, well im not the only person that uses this computer, and i use mozilla, everyone else uses IE. about 3 weeks ago i went on vacation, and someone got se.dll on this computer. this is the little whore im trying to get rid of. i usually scan everything with avg, adaware, spybot, hijack this, and reg cleaner to find if anything new has appered. regardless, im still trying to get the others who use this computer to use mozilla, and im trying to make it so they dont accidently pick up this stuff while their browsing. now, about keyloggers, do they log everything going typed on the system, or do they log everything going on in IE only? and i got a cable connection, so i got a cable router, how do i go about adding another router? thanx for the replys guys.