Hardware firewall for starters. It's not the best, but it's better than nothing. I'm on a wired connection, not wireless, so no wise-a** is going to crack through some "open access point". I have just my OS and Program Files on mY C: drive and everything else on D:. I use Opera and Ad Muncher so no ActiveX, Java, JavaScript or other scripting features are enabled and all the ads and banners are removed, not that I'd click on them if they did show up. I don't open unknown e-mails or attachments. I question file transfers from those on my MSN and if someone adds me and immediately tries to send me something, its kind of obvious what the intention is. I image my HDD and can easily restore if anything bad happened. But if I ever noticed someone who managed to hack through a router, I'd simply pull the ethernet cable out of the router. Give my setup, I'd love to see someone hack through air. The problem is most people feel that if they don't have loads of security suites installed that they will be infected. This is not the case. If you want to get infected, go out and get yourself infected. Accept those transfers, open those downloaded EXEs and ZIPs off LimeWire, open that attachment and click on that bouncing "you're our 999,999th customer, click here for your free laptop!" button. Hell, anyone ever heard of DeepFreeze and a ThawSpace? Reboot and everything's fine! Well I'm on a router firewall and yet observe most of your security tips all the time. However, I still feel the need of using the lighweight Avira AntiVir along with my precautionary measures. On the other side, I've read about DeepFreeze sometime ago. I don't know, too good to be true..