Go to www.zdnet.com and download 602 Lansuite for a free 5 user firewall. Set up as default and follow the instructions to give it control of your dial - up / broadband connection. Do the same with Spybot S&D. Disable flash and ActiveX controls as these are vehicles used by malware designers to crash microsoft o/s machines. This means you won't be able to view funky flash animation or some stuff on Cascading style sheets but the content generally is all show and no go anyway. Total download / installation / configuration time - 1 hour. You might want to load Spywareblaster and McAffee's Stinger.exe as well. All good tools for keeping your machine problem free. Free advice, free software. What more do you need?