Hi Mike.

>A couple of questions -- what about web sites that want to stealthily load stuff onto your machine? Avoid them, or does the firewall catch them? And what firewall(s) do you use?

First, I only go to Web sites I know (not to say they couldn't be infected, though). Second, it's the firewall's job to not let anything through. I used to use ZoneAlarm but since I moved to Vista, I've been relying on Windows Firewall. I realize that's a bit of a gamble {g} but thought I'd give it a shot and so far, not a single problem in almost two years.

Interestingly, there's a discussion on this topic right now on the West Wind forum. Here's Rick's thoughts on this: http://www.west-wind.com/wwThreads/default.asp?Thread=2IQ0FCIQ4&MsgId=2IQ157VGY

Doug