Do you use an anti-virus? firewall?
 

If not, you should.

Some things you should consider:
- Anti-virus keeps harmful code and software off your computer.
- A firewall prevents harmful code and software from entering or exiting your system. A firewall can also keep "nosey" software at bay, not let it "call home" and waste your computer resources or Internet bandwidth. Nor spy on you.
- Spyware and adware removers are good. These things slow a computer up, and can corrupt your system and software. Almost as bad as a virus.


Here's a number of COMPLETELY FREE softwares.

ANTI-VIRUS: AVG Free Edition Anti-Virus
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

FIREWALL: Kerio Personal Firewall
http://www.kerio.com/kpf_download.html

SPYWARE REMOVER: Spyboy Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
NOTE! Be sure to install the TEATIMER S&D Resident blocker.

SPYWARE REMOVER: Ad-Aware SE Personal
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
NOTE: It's a good idea to run both Ad-Aware AND Spybot!


I run a clean system. I don't have odd things going on. I don't have random crashes. Things run really fast. This is how I do it. It makes your life a lot easier, whether you're burning DVDs, editing video, or searching the Internet for shows... or whatever else you do on the computer.

Zonelabs has a free firewall that is one of the best out there. Kerio firewall is good to, but I believe they are going to stop supporting the free version come jan 1.

They will support it throughout 2006. What happens in 2007 is too far away to know. All they have stopped is releases of new version (like that matters), they updates will still happen.

If you can afford it, Norton Corporate Edition 10 is really nice. It takes care of spyware and virus, and does a really good job on both. I had been using Spysweeper, but stopped using it once SAV 10 came out. SAV nine was nice, but it didn't allow you to effectively clean the spyware that it found. 10 allows you to clean or delete the spyware as well as the virus.