David,
XP professional does have its own Intenet Connection Firewall. The help file
says the following:
To enable or disable Internet Connection Firewall
Open Network Connections
Click the Dial-up, LAN or High-Speed Internet connection that you want to
protect, and then, under Network Tasks, click Change settings of this
connection.
On the Advanced tab, under Internet Connection Firewall, select one of the
following:
To enable Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), select the Protect my computer and
network by limiting or preventing access to this computer from the Internet
check box.
To disable Internet Connection Firewall, clear the Protect my computer and
network by limiting or preventing access to this computer from the Internet
check box.
Notes
To open Network Connections, click Start, click Control Panel, click Network and
Internet Connections, and then click Network Connections.
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators
group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a
network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this
procedure.
If you clear the Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing
access to this computer from the Internet check box, the firewall on your
computer is disabled, and your network is vulnerable to intrusions.
You should not enable Internet Connection Firewall on virtual private networking
(VPN) connections or on client computers because ICF will interfere with file
and printer sharing.
ICF cannot be enabled on the private connections of the Internet Connection
Sharing host computer.
Internet Connection Sharing, Internet Connection Firewall, Discovery and
Control, and Network Bridge are not available on Windows XP 64-Bit Edition.
The surest way to avoid any parasites is to stop visiting porn sites. My PC is
completely safe (and clean) just by using M$ products which comes with most new
PCs and Symantec Anti-virus which I bought for £29.99 (GBP). The virus
definitions are automatically updated once a week.
You might want to download a free version of Spybot
(
http://www.safer-networking.org) which should keep out most squaters!
hth
