I being not very knowledgeable on the subject, can someone explain as to what a Personal Firewall will do what an anti-virus is not already doing?? -

A firewall will stop internet traffic from unauthorises sources either originating on your system, or an attempted entry from a far. Worth having if you want to make 0\/\/\/\Z!\/\G your system harder You will appear more intelligent if you use these words properly: Lose, Loose, Accept, Except.

With the firewall too. I think you can program it to allow certain programs to access the internet and like ^^^ said stop access to your computer from an outside source and block outgoing data that you didn't permit.

A firewall will stop connections to the internet and from the internet that YOU have not given permission for: even, at first, your own internet connection!! It will prompt you for responses each time (Yes/No)but will also give you automatic connection to your trusted sites without asking for further permission (provided you give it this authority). It will not, however, give you protection against virus'/trojans/spyware. For this extra protection you need the anti virus program and, for spyware /malware etc, you will need extra back up from programs like Ad-aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spywareblaster and the like. In other words, you need all three areas covered to be pretty safe from attack. HOWEVER - YOU ARE THE BEST (or worst) LINE OF DEFENCE AGAINST MALWARE re opening attachments, visiting dubious web sites!!!!!

Thanks for the suggestions. I did install Sygate Personal Firewall. But while it allowed normal internet to continue it disconnected the GPRS internet. I tried many settings but none worked. Ultimately I had to uninstall the firewall. Now the GPRS works fine. Are there any settings that I can make to fierwall so that it allows GPRS internet to continue?? -

What is GPRS? I don't know but maybe it needs you to forward ports for it to gain access to the internet. When you have a firewall I believe you can allow only certain ports to open for programs that you allow access to the internet.