Many false alarms are being sounded in this thread, that's no help to DarkMatter at all. The "intrustions" that DarkMatter is seeing are probably mostly port scans that were blocked by ZoneAlarm, not successful intrusions. It's possible if not probable that such "who's vulnerable out there?" scans are unrelated to which browser DarkMatter is using. It's unfortunate that when issues of hacking and virii come up, hysteria accompanies actually useful information in these forums. I'd strongly suggest that DarkMatter simply read the ZoneAlarm documentation, and furthermore, info at their website. It's good stuff, and will probably set your mind at ease about what you're seeing. The most important thing is that you're using firewall software. ZoneAlarm is excellent. "I installed this only a week agoe, and there is hardly anything on my drive worth stealing and nothing for a hacker to to waist his time on, So why so many hack attacks?" They almost certainly aren't targeting you personally, they don't know what's on your hard drive. You did the right thing by installing a firewall.