I got to thinking about this of late. Do all members have a firewall installed? Do all members have an up to date virus scanner installed? Do you click on links without a second thought? Are you posting your personal details without you knowing?
Things that make you go ‘hmmm’
Well, you’d want at least a firewall. There isn’t any excuses these days for not having that as there are loads to choose from and a few are free.
Anti-Virus is another thing, with weekly updates and daily scans. AVG is a good one to chose for that.
Then there is the Anti-Spyware stuff you need to get and learn how to use…
If you’re on broadband and “always on” then you’d definately need those. Although on Broadband most of you will have Modems rather than Routers. If you’ve a Router with NAT you don’t need to worry about a firewall as such as it’s built into the Router…
Are you looking for reccomendations for actual software??
AVG / Zone Alarm / Adaware / Spybot S&D should get you going.
I run McAfee Security Suite. I have also set up the e mail to delete ALL attachments at server.
I do regular scans & do find from time to time the odd problem has crept in, but being on Broadband nothing expensive yet.
We did run Zone Alarm (the free one) for years before we got this router set up, this has hardware firewall and is solid., also we run the XP integrated firewall as it’s there. For virus we use AVG (again free) and for spyware, the free AdAware.
I have a hardware firewall as well and its idiot proof(just as well)
I also have the AVG free virus cheaker which updates everynight and even stops Virus’s in email before it is delevered 
As for pop up stoppers, I use the Yahoo pop-up stopper. I have never had a pop-up since I installed it! and Yep its free!
The free stuff, to be fair, is damned good most of the time!
Even if your router has NAT you should still use a firewall. NAT is not a firewall as such. A true firewall will examine the data packets and decide how they should be treated depending on the rules you have set or the default rules of the firewall, all NAT does is translate one IP address to another. A good free firewall is [u]Sygate.[/u]
Try [u]Firefox[/u] internet browser it has a popup stoper built in and a few other good features.
Zonealarm is regarded as one of the best firewalls, and yes they do a free personal version!
You can download it free from here!
Hi viz vest of course
I checked my pc over at grc and it is totally stealthed, all ports are invisible, in fact, the machine was invisible and passed all tests, so summat must be doing the job right!
edit.
Security
Security is vital to every PC user, so all SpeedTouch routers
come with an advanced firewall for network protection.
Two additional key security features are provided for the
wireless network: WEP encryption of wireless communications,
and a secure registration button, which gives
users the opportunity to explicitly control device access to
the wireless network.
Mal:
I checked my pc over at grc and it is totally stealthed, all ports are invisible, in fact, the machine was invisible and passed all tests, so summat must be doing the job right!edit.
Security
Security is vital to every PC user, so all SpeedTouch routers
come with an advanced firewall for network protection.
Two additional key security features are provided for the
wireless network: WEP encryption of wireless communications,
and a secure registration button, which gives
users the opportunity to explicitly control device access to
the wireless network.
if your machine is invisible,then how do you know where to find it 
Cough… what is ‘NAT’ and what is a ‘router’?
TY from a ‘thick’ puter user 
i use …zone alarm pro …my personal firewall … xp firewall …adaware personal…Norton Anti viruis 2004 …spybot search and destroy… think thats it
NAT stands for Network Address Translation, it allows a local-area network (LAN) to use one set of IP addresses for internal traffic and a second set for external traffic. It also provides a type of firewall by hiding internal IP addresses but it isn’t a complete firewall, you still need one of those these days.
A router is a device that forwards data along networks and usually also connects your network to the internet. If you just have two computers at home networked you can connect them directly with a cable but for more than that or for ease of sharing an internet connection a router is the thing to have.
Some routers are a combination of some computers connected by cable and some wirelessly, the one I use is like that with two PCs wired to it and two and an iPAQ connecting wirelessly.
For security I use the firewall in the router, Norton Anti Virus 2005, a big improvement over the 2004 version, Spybot and Adaware.
I have had this word document on my PC for a while now, can’t remember where I got it from (PC Answers site I think) Hope they don’t mind me posting it here.
. It is Windows based stuff and as I use Linux most of the time I haven’t tried all the software but some of the things recommended are excellent pieces of software and a lot of it is free. You will find most of it if you google for it.
Safe Surfing
Layered security is the key to maximum protection, so you have other measures in place, should one program fail, or is disabled by a virus. Areas you should take extra precaution with are the running of Active X Controls and installation of Browser Helper Objects. Both of which, will run automatically should your browser not be configured correctly.
Many spyware and Trojans are capable of disabling both Anti Virus and Firewalls, so it’s imperative to ensure you have other measures in place. Some of these utilities are only run once applications that don’t use up system resources, merely make adjustments in the Registry.
The key to any security program is to ensure it’s updated regularly, as outdated definitions are of little use against latest threats. At the very minimum I would recommend AV, Firewall, Trojan Scanner, Spyware Scanner these days, as no AV or firewall is capable of protecting you against all the potential threats on the Internet.
Programs/Utilities/Patches
Advanced Process Manipulation gives you full control over running processes.
AVG Anti Virus. For better protection, right-click the systray icon, select AVG Control Center, go to General and check to use Heuristics. Heuristics will check for file behaviour, rather than specific viral definition. As always, keep it updated regularly
Browser Hijack Blaster has now been replaced by Spywareguard It helps protect from Browser hijacks.
Cookie Wall for managing your Cookies
XP Anti Spy to disable XP’s “calling home” services
CoolWebShredder to remove CWS browser hijack
IE Spyad Registry file, to add known adware/spyware sites to your Restricted Sites Zone. Once you’ve double-clicked the file and it’s merged into the Registry, the list of sites will be blocked at source by your browser.
Mailwasher to manage your Spam. You can view your emails on the server, to determine what’s safe to download to your email client.
HTA Stop, DSO Stop, Sock Lock to disable HTA’s being downloaded, to patch the Data Source Object Browser Vulnerability and to lock your Winsock to prevent it being changed by Trojan/Spyware. HTA Stop 2003 has recently been released which is compatible with XP, although it may prevent some Control Panel applets functioning.
Lavasoft Adaware 6 to scan and eliminate spyware
MRU Blaster to safely remove all your Most Recently Used Lists. The IE Plug In for this utility will also empty your Temporary Internet File Cache and Index.dat.
PassLock to patch the MPR.dll to prevent it disclosing password information to spyware/trojans. This doesn’t need applying with XP as it’s already patched.
Pop Up Stopper to block those pesky pop ups.
Process Guard to protect process and services. It will prevent rootkits and trojans making changes to system files.
RegistryProt to monitor the Run keys in the Registry, often changed by spyware and trojans. This uses minimal resources, but monitors the Run Folders, and will alert you should anything attempt to put themselves to run at start up.
Spyware Blaster to block known malicious Active X controls at source, to prevent your browser downloading them. This is a run-once application, so once you’ve checked all the Items, then selected Protect Against All Items, you can close the program and forget about it, but keep an eye on the Updates Section for recent updates.
Spybot S&D to scan and eliminate spyware, registry inconsistencies, now includes Immunization to block malicious Active X Controls
Spyblocker to monitor Port 80 (http) blocking web bugs, cookies, ads, spyware, worms, CSS, websites, scripts scanners. It’s not free, but at £14 is well worth the money
Spyware Guard provides a real-time protection solution against spyware that is a great addition to SpywareBlaster’s protection method.
Spyware Stopper provides protection from Browser Hijacks, cookies, BHOs and ActiveX and monitor your ports
Sygate Personal Firewall
WSH Anti-Polymorphism Patch to prevent VBScripts and JavaScripts from being able to read and write to themselves.
MSN Messenger Spam
This is a new trend where advantage is taken of the Windows Messaging Service, to target users with pop ups and unwanted advertising, better known as Spam. As it comes in many different forms, at first it may just seem like normal pop ups. To disable:
Windows XP Home
Go to Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance, Administrative Tools, Services, Messenger. Right-click, select Properties, click Stop then disable.
Windows XP Professional
Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services, Messenger. Right-click, select Properties, press Stop then Disable.
You should also make sure your firewall is blocking ports 135-139 as these are the ports this services uses, but typically Port 139.
Internet Explorer/Outlook Express
Other things you should consider are taking advantage of IE and OE’s security features. In IE, disable Meta Refresh in Tools, Internet Options, Security, Custom Level, set your Active X to prompt, and your zone to at least Medium. Meta Refresh is used for automatic re-direction and is often used by webmasters when their URL has changed. It’s also used by browser hijackers for malicious purpose to re-direct you to unwanted sites, so with this option disabled, it does give you a bit more protection. You can disable third party cookies & just have those sites you can trust added to the zone. IE Spyad takes care of the Restricted Sites Zone, without you needing to amend in manually.
In OE, disable Preview Pane, as many viruses can propagate just by previewing. Go to Tools, Options, Read and disable “Mark Messages as Read after x” and “Automatically download messages in Preview Pane”. Under the Security tab, ensure “Warn me when other applications try to send mail as me” and “Do not allow attachments to be opened or saved that could potentially be a virus”. This gives you added security. In the event of you wanting access to an attachment, just disable the option, save the attachment to your hard disk, but scan with your AV, ensuring you have latest definitions.
My head now hurts. I’ve got Norton Internet Security installed - firewall and Virus checker. Any opinions on it - mine is it’s good enough 
.
So NAT is sort of like a network thing … ie: it protects the outbound connections from networked puters, but allows puters within the network to communicate with the net, whilst hiding behind the main puter right? wrong?
A ‘router’ is basically a modem ■■ right/wrong??
TY from a thick puter user
P.S. Can you not delete cookies without the use of a special program? Also what is the point of having a firewall and a virus scanner (up to date) if it does not protect you from online hi-jacking? Regardless of you operating sytem and the age of your puter can’t you do certain things to ensure that your puter is ‘safe’?
Right and Wrong Tel,
A router does what it says on the tin it routes information packets to their correct delivery point. They are an ideal way of sharing a single broadband internet connection between several (up to 254) PC’s at home and allow you to create a local area network (LAN). Some routers do have a modem built in but not all.
NAT is an acronym for Network Address Translation. It operates as a solution to having multiple, global IP addresses. If you intend to connect your current LAN to the internet, it is likely you will use a form of NAT so that each computer does not require a global unique IP address, but instead can use private addressing within the ranges:
10.0.0.0 - 10.254.254.254
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.254.254
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.254.254
All traffic to and from the Internet passes through one host – Usually a router
NAT is often built into routers. It receives each packet from the internal private network and modifies the IP header to match the global IP address of the router, before it is transmitted to the outside world. The router stores the internal IP address, destination IP address and port number in a routing table. When a request is returned on the same port, NAT matches the internal IP address that originated the request and modifies the IP header to match the internal address once again.
NAT helps to reduce consumption of IP addresses. You can use an IP address within one of the ranges stated above for all internal hosts on your LAN, but still connect to The Internet using NAT.
You can delete all your cookies by running I.E. then open Tools>Internet Options selecting the General tab and select Delete Cookies. There are other internet browsers and most have an option to delete your cookies this way.
I have a LAN at home, four PC’s and a laptop. It is connected to the Internet using a Linksys Wireless Router and a NTL modem. Three of the PC’s and the laptop run Windows XP they all have firewall and antiviral software. I do run other software such as Spybot and Hijackthis and a couple of others occasionally just to keep a check on them. But if you use common sense and virus check everything you download before opening it and delete any emails with addresses you don’t recognise you can avoid nearly all nasties. Apart from a couple of virus infections from the Kids forgetting to check stuff from mates we haven’t had any other problems in a few years. Have a close look at how your firewall works and set it to only allow the programs you want, to access the internet. There are hundreds of things that want access to the internet even on a brand new PC out of all of them probably three or four actually need access.
I am running Panda’s security suite. That contains a Firewall, an e-mail security/virus checker and a browser security/virus checker.
To support that I am also running Adaware 6 from Lavasoft, free on CD from P.C.Answers and Spybot S & D also free from P.C.Answers mag.
My Popup Stopper is on my Google taskbar and I use Mailwasher to check my e-mail before downloading it into my e-mail programme, free from the same source.
Adaware and spybot are progs which stop the cookies and other nosy little bugs getting into your 'puter in the first place. You have to configure them when you start them, and run a scan with them every now and again (say once a month if you are a W/E only user).
Don’t forget that cookies are also useful liitle gadgets. This site, for eg uses cookies which tell the site which forums you have looked at, and which threads you have read. The site is then able to highlight which forums and threads have new posts since your last visit (by turning the little icons different colours).