NASLite Network Attached Storage

<2 cents worth>

In my expirence if you have:

- A good quality Router (Cisco we'd all love, Netgrear a good, Linksys and D-Link are resonable)
- Good virus scanning (SOPHOS for me, but AVG is excellent too)
- User education (if you administer an office network)

The need for ZoneAlarm or Windows "firewall" is not really required. ZoneAlarm is nice, but in the past it used to grow a brain and disable access. Quote a pain when it came to remote managaement...

Also, all the usual Windows/Office Updates are a must.

</2 cents worth>

T.

in my experiance Zonealaram still registers incoming blocked traffic even behind a router with a Firewall (though possibly it wouldn't if it was a Cisco, how many home users can afford Cisco kit?).

My Smoothwall renders Zonealarms incoming traffic protection largely unncecessary, but the outgoing control is still nice.

I have a netgear DG834GT router but I wouldn't trust it completely without zonealarm and because zonealarm still throws up the occaisional **** is trying to access the internet or the zonealarm blocked ***.***.***.*** it shows that the Netgear router is ok for port blocking, ip address restriction and the wireless security is ok, but any spyware or trojans that get in can't phone home without me allowing them too.

I'm a firm beliver in "better safe than sorry" so I have everything that's important backed up, do all my windows updates and run both firewalls, my up to date antivirus software and once a week I run a couple of spyware removal tools, adaware and spybot (both free and very good)

Wilbur,

Would agree with you on the "better safe than sorry" policy. I'm ultra paranoid when it comes to data backups - My work laptop alone gets backed up to 3 different sites

Spyware is a lot like spam to me - you can never completly get rid of it. It all comes back to how people deal with it. My wife and I are the only ones that use the Home network, we are both IT professionals and are very vigilant about what we do and where we go ion the internet. This is not to say that you don't ahve to be an IT professional to know how to avoid viruses and spyware.

<back on soapbox>

For me the best way to deal with virus / spyware is a good combination of the right tools AND user education. Both items working in balance will give oyu the protection you need.

</back on soapbox>

T.

here here good advice basically whilst surfin watch what you tread in!!