Shoutbox

Of course common sense and tweaking your settings so that everything is safe is very possible to keep you clean, but please.
CookieRevised, you know very well that Windows XP is an OS which almost All new multimedia pcs have installed, meaning that any dumb and ignorant home user will have a defaults package. Meaning that they run with the defaults and cannot, because they don't know how to, set up a decent and secure system. I do not believe the windows firewall to be on by default, although I'm not sure about that.
Now, as for commen sense, yes, that's the one and main thing that keeps you clean, even more so than any virusscanner, firewall, etc. But how many, as for the target of the Windows OS, home users have that kind of commen sense?
We're running a home LAN here, and all the pcs getting infected are Jasper and Simon's, whom are my two brothers. Well look at that. I don't run any sort of virusscanner, and almost all ports from the router are forwarded to My pc. Meaning, hell; their lack of commen sense is what fooks up almost every time.

And they're good with pcs. My mum, she's bad. And she's better than a commen home user.

Windows OS is targetted for dumb people. And it's a shame to have dumb people online through one of the least secure recent OSes available. Because it's exactly those who should be protected by the defaults.
Luckily, Microsoft is recently making alot of moves towards safer OSes, meaning that, yes, XP is thousands and thousands of times better than 98, and SP2 seems very promising. Windows Server 2003 is an OS which has never been safer.
It seems promesing, but as of now, the foundations are the same, and are vulnerable (netBIOS, IE, ...). They are still untrustworthy.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
IF the "hacker" even manages to get your current IP (you indeed will have a dynamic IP which changes with every internet connection (unless you payed A LOT for your connection and in that case you will know when you have a static IP)).

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At least you seem to agree with me on one point. =)