After years on the Net with no protection, I'm formatting my hard-drive and re-installing everything due to the amount of useless programs and problems I now encounter. For the future though I'm looking at a firewall and virus protection. Can anyone suggest the best way of protecting my computer when on the internet. I have ad-aware and use that regularly but what other measures should I adopt, other than downloading windows updates etc.

Hello Benaud, if it's any help, I find Zone Alarm firewall to work quite well for me. I have never had any problems with it. I am running version 4.5 at present, as there were some bugs with the newer version 5.0 If I recall, there might be a newer version out, to replace the problematic version 5.0; but I am not positive. I use McAfee for my anti-virus. This has also worked very well for me. You have many firewalls and anti-virus to choose from, and you'll most likely recieve favorable, and un-favorable opinions from many people. What works for one person, might not be satisfactory for the other. Choose one that works best for you....that is probably the best recommendation. There was a site somewhere, that gave a report of various firewalls and anti-virus programs, but I can't recall the website. Mayne someone will know where it is and post it for you. Good luck! Take care... ~Tommyo

I use the free AVG Virus protection and Sygate Firewall, it has worked real good too.

For AV, in my opinion, there is no other AV better than NOD32. Its really fast and just works. For software firewall, I like the Outpost from Agnitum. San

Tommyo, is this what you were mentioning? http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?table I don't think it has any firewall comparison, but it does for the virus scanners. Also, Zonealarm has updated from version 5.0.590.015 to 5.0.590.043. I am so far not experiencing any problems with it, but I can't be sure about Zonealarm's virus scanner problem, as I use NOD32. My Zonealarm Pro, and NOD32 both work wonders for me, and I recommend them.

Best Virus scanners: AVG virus scanner (IMO) Mc-Afee Virus Scan (IMO) Trend Micro Internet Security (for me) Best Firewalls: Sygate (checked it, and it's great) Outpost (checked it, and it's great) Trend Micro Internet Security (also for me) SP2 Firewall (have heard many rumors that this maybe the best firewall microsoft has ever built. Don't know, don't care.) Expert™

Hello Laura...yes! That is the one that I was thinking of; thanks! Also, thanks for the info on Zone Alarm. I shall look into that, as I'm still using the 4.5 here. Have a nice weekend! ~Tommyo