Broadband

[Swan]

guys going to be getting broadband soon. Hurrah! Wanna keep myself safe though. Any suggestions, any specific areas I should study?

[Stavros]

Well, I can't really think of anything to study except for TCP/IP, but can't think of how useful that would be (Unless you're using Linux of course).

I can think of a few programs that are a must:

Antivirus
Note: There are many you can choose from, but the one that gets the most praise is Kaspersky
-Kaspersky (not free is a system hog)
-Avast!
-AVG
-Clamwin (it was originally for Linux, but got ported to Windows. Takes me about 3 hours to completely scan my Hard Drive [HD is 250 GBs].)
-AntiVir Personal Edition (just now heard of it; will try soon; supposed to be one of the high-ranking home brew anti-virus)

Firewall
-IPFW (again for Linux, got ported to Windows: I use it; Windows won't recognize it since it runs as a SYSTEM process.
-Zonealarm
-Kiero Firewall (I've heard its a "paranoid" firwall; lots of nagging)

Anti-Spyware/Anti-Adaware
-Spybot Search&Destroy (must have)
-Adaware SE Personal (must have)
-HijackThis (Must Have)
-SpywareBlaster (must have)

Web Browser
Choose one.
-Firefox
-Opera
-Kmeleon (to me it feels the same as Firefox, but Kmeleon is open-source)

This is my short-list of must-have software (and it's free!) (except for Kaspersky)

[alien100]

mostly security i recommend zonealarm firewall avira or avg antivirus and adaware se personal or professional for realtime protection (antispyware).

[deathblade]

Antivirus: depends on what your doing if your just surfing the net then avg would be fine a long with any of the firewalls listed

[p99]

Well if your on Windows you are going to want to optimize your connection.
XP was designed(or just neglected) for dial-up.

Google around for optimizing xp for broadband.

You get download speeds of around 1000/kbs instad of 300-500/kbs

It is most wonderful actually.