Sorry, this is first time I saw this thread. Here I can give you some explaning about security. 1) Firewall. Normally working at the IP L3 and L4. It filters address and blocks ports. It is kind of access control. Find out what ports your computer is opening and close them down if those are not nessary. 2) Anti-Virus, Worms, and Trojan Horses. Normally, it came as HTTP download/upload, FTP download/upload, Email, etc. But expecting it from Instant Messenger and Peer to Peer communication too. They are working on L7--Application level, so firewall is useless for them. There are freeware such as Clamav you can use. 3) Intrusion Detection/Prevention. This is against all kind of exploit of protocols. Many of user applications are rushed out of door so they are full of bugs to be exploited. No matter, your name is Microsoft or Oracle. The freeware is called Snort. 4) Anti-Spam. You probably don't need this on your home PC, but if you use webmail from Google, Yahoo, etc., you will be exposed to this. Those email sites suppose handle this, but they are no doing it. 5) Anti-Spyware. For those cookies, tracking, popup, etc. I haven't really look into freeware for this yet. But you can do a search to find one. Expect more and more threats come up. Since I am doing nothing right now, I am thinking to make a home-based appliance that can handle all those problems.
I ran that test posted earlier (Shield UP! or something like that). It came back with my computer running in Stealth Mode. Is that accurate? I had a friend ping my computer from outside my network and it timed out on him. So I'm pretty safe right? Except for downloading spyware or a virus, I mean. Thanks, Sachin