I read recently that in the first 6 months of 2005, 11,000 new viruses,trojans,spyware were reported in North America.That's astonishing!.This stat should make everyone who likes to surf the net,send and receive email look hard at what they're using to protect their computers.I am presently using a product that i get free with my cable internet subscription and i must say i've been impressed so far.It is a complete package.Antivirus,spyware,email scanner,firewall, and system monitor.I've used various antiviruses over the past few years and i must say this is the best so far.Not to say there isn't better but i feel much better protected than with AVG or Norton.I'm not being negative towards these products just stating a personal observation. Read in another post someone got infected with the lodear.c trojan.Mine caught that the other day as it comes through your email.For anyone who has had to format and reinstall everything, it's not an enjoyable process and i'm sure there are a few viruses out there that do enough damage to have to reinstall. Feel free to add your thoughts on this!.

the best protection is to use you computer wisely. Do not open attachments in emails you don't know do not install various software which are questionable Do not press OK or YES when you see various messages in your screen without actually reading them. And of course try to use time tested software, because there are lots of fake products. There are more than 350 spyware removers in the market: some of them are really bad and made to deceive you, others are quite good. Some of them are free of charge, some - are not. Read reviews: here is the list of good antispyware programs and here is the list of bad programs called corrupt antispyware.

Ugnius' info is good. And my 2 cents: I have 0 (yes, zero) spyware problems since i started using firefox for browser a year ago. IE used to allow for spy and rouge cookies to accumulate in my PC in no time no matter what security/privacy settings I used!

friendly_jacek Strange that, I get no cookies with IE6.1 set at full privacy (not that I regard cookies, relatively, as that important). There are washer programs that remove all cookies except those you want. I think safe browsing habits say it all. I've had IE on this W98SE since Nov 99 and had no nasties whatsoever. Last one I had was "Happy 99" (harmless) on my W95/IE machine in 1999. My main criticism of IE is that it is integrated into Windows, which complicates diagnosis of many software problems. That fact that Firefox is stand alone software makes it a good bet, apart from any other considerations. DerekW

To clarify for whoever read this post :-) ...My main criticism of IE is that it is integrated into Windows... Not out of necessity but to cement M$ jealous & monopolistic hold of XP following the then ongoing browsers war. My understanding is that for the next generation of Windows (Vista), IE will be standalone. i_XpUser

.... then I might just stick with my reliable old Win 98SE and wait for Vista LOL (well, plus 6 months for the worst bugs to get sorted). DerekW

Derec, With IE set at full privacy, many websites did not work for me. Allowing exemption, allowed for bad cookies to accumulate. I have none of that with firefox. There are 2 sites I'm aware that do not work with firefox though, one of them is windows update (of course!).