TC:
Zonealarm is regarded as one of the best firewalls, and yes they do a free personal version!You can download it free from here!
ROTFLMFAO !!!
I forgot to say that Panda’s suite includes an anti-dialer. The firewall also checks with you every time a new programme (to the firewall) tries to access the internet. It gives you 4 options :- Allow this once only, Allow every time, Disallow this once only, or Disallow every time. That seems to me to cover all options.
To many paranoid people about these days 
…
OK so a router allows multiple puters to connect to the internet on one connection, and allows each puter to send and recieve data, through a specific IP (IP is Internet Protocol… I think that this is rather similar to a post code. It is specific to the address that you are sending and recieving information from. Except on the internet your IP is not a door number street name and town, it is a collection of numbers.) As such, you can have more than one addresee sending email or other internet information from one IP address. NAT is like an internal ‘postal’ system. It sends data/information to the right recipient. I KNOW that I have got this much right now !! With regards to my LAN question… LAN is just ‘a sorting office’ so to speak. OK thank you for taking the time and trouble to respond !! From a thick puter user (P.S. I know how to delete cookies… I was asking in a roundabout way if others know how to)
TY from a thick puter user 
Something that nobody has mentioned here: Don’t use multiple firewalls!! I had an issue with the XP pro firewall conflicting with my Norton firewall, until I turned the XP wall off.
Also, the anti-dialer is a good idea for those who still use modems (I decided to not put one in my new computer). I had a friend who allowed my dialer to be hijacked a couple of years ago, and ended up with a mysterious bill for a phone call to Guinea-Bissau!! At least it was only for 1 minute, but there was no chance to fight it, since the phone company was blameless.
Condoms… 
Ross.Northen.Ireland:
i use …zone alarm pro …my personal firewall … xp firewall …adaware personal…Norton Anti viruis 2004 …spybot search and destroy… think thats it
But your computer must take ages to boot up!! Don’t foget that too many progs running in the background (i.e. firewalls & virus checkers) will drain hardware resources such as CPU and RAM.
Also, as is mentioned further down in this thread, is the issue of like progs conflicting. I use the hardware firewall in my broadband router and Zone Alarm (free). I have turned off the XP Firewall to avoid ‘conflicts’.
I have always been a big fan of ‘SpyBot Search & Destroy’ and have met the guy that wrote it, Patrick de Kolla, at a computer fair here in Paderborn. He is from Dortmund University and is very switched-on!! However, the latest version of AdAware SE always finds more than Spybot and as there is no point having both installed, Spybot is going to be deleted from my system to save resources. The latest AdAware is GOOD!!
marcustandy:
Ross.Northen.Ireland:
i use …zone alarm pro …my personal firewall … xp firewall …adaware personal…Norton Anti viruis 2004 …spybot search and destroy… think thats itBut your computer must take ages to boot up!! Don’t foget that too many progs running in the background (i.e. firewalls & virus checkers) will drain hardware resources such as CPU and RAM.
Yep, it would. I tend to run my protection software once a week normally. The Anti-Virus is always running and if I’m running new software I’ll use a firewall, but the rest of the time those other programs aren’t running.
Just glancing over to my XP machine now to the taskbar I have Lanpop, Volume, HotSwitch, ZA Pro 5, AVG, Sis and DUMeter running. And that’s it down there. On the machine at the moment is Ameol, DoubleKiller and Mozilla running but it’s mostly just sitting there doing nowt.
This machine is immune from a lot of the crud on the net. I routinely get messages saying that I haven’t got xyz running (such as shockwave) and it offers to take me somewhere to download it. How nice, but I’ve not yet found a shockwave that will work on Mandrake Kontact 