Spyware has gone beyond a joke now

Sygate seems to do the job pretty well for me, along with Norton Anti-Virus. NAV is set for automatic updates and I make it a habit to update and run Ad-aware at least once a week. So far, there have been no problems.

 

I've got a hardware firewall on the router, and i have tested its integrity and it has been reported to be totally secure every time, but I'm not sure if a firewall helps all that much, not if they are using web ports like I assume popups do.

 

That's why you need to run a software firewall as well paul. While hardware firewalls are port-based, the software firewalls are application based. Thus when you first run it, you have to tell it the trusted applications you are using (Firefox, mIRC, yahoo messenger, msn, etc). It will ask each time a new application it has not seen access the net before appears, so you can say no to any spyware app. Thus if a random .exe suddenly wants to access the net, and you don't know what it is, say no, or find out what it is before you allow it.

 

I always [perhaps mistakenly] thought you didnt need a software firewall if you have a hardware one, as a hardware one is better?

 

Like I said, they work in different ways. A Hardware one is much better when people are trying to get in. A software one is better when things are trying to get out. But given that software ones are free, why not have both?