We use computers for our personal needs, sometimes for entertainment and others may use it for business reasons. But there comes a point and time where you will have to have security and privacy. If you are connected to the internet, and you do not have a firewall enabled, you can become infected with the Blaster worm within 60 seconds. That's how dangerously worms are floating around the internet. And for this reason you need to have security software. I recommend the following: A firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and a safe web browser. For a firewall I highly recommend "Zone Alarm" this free firewall is by far the absolute best you will find, others may argue comodo, kerio, or agnitum are better. In my opinion Zone Alarm is better in many ways, it's automatically configured to stealthly hide your ports from the internet, and is better configured. If you're not so serious then the built in firewall "Windows Firewall" is a good alternative. As far as Anti-Virus is concerned, I recommend "AVG" from Grisoft. It is a free non intrusive anti-virus that is just as good as norton or anything else you will purchase but will not "bogg" down your system. With anti-spyware there are a number of great choices. #1 I would recommend "Windows Defender" above all, but the others are "Ad-Aware" and "SpyBot". If you're willing to spend money then "Spy Sweeper" from Webroot is extremely well built and is the absolute best of the best as far as it catching a very high percentage of spyware. Besides using a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware, you will need to have a safe web browser. I highly suggest you to use Mozilla FireFox. It's popularity is skyrocketting and is the safest web browser(and easiest) to use. Web browsers I do not recommend are Internet Explorer, AOL's browser, or anything else that allows ActiveX scripting. If you use a web browser that allows ActiveX then somebody can put a malicious script on a website, have you visit that site(perhaps accidentally by even a popup or social engineering), and it will download the scripting onto your computer "without" your knowledge. From there, they can track what websites you go on, display popup ads, or even capture your passwords. This is what is called "Spyware". And it is how most users get infected besides downloading malicious content. Next article I will cover different ways to protect yourself, how you can safely configure your applications, and bad security software that will do more harm than good.