Alright... have to say a few things. First, the evil people who all have nothing else to do but trying to get hold of your computer via the net are not hackers, they are called crackers or scriptkiddies. Second. If you are 'browsing Renderosity', you are not only only 'browsing Renderosity'. Your computer is permanently connected to the net at that moment, with its own IP address which usually is given to you by your ISP for the time you're online. If you severe the connection and dial in anew, you will probably have a different IP address, because those are given away dynamically. And that's where those 'attacks' often come from: Imagine someone else has the IP 1235 and is playing an online game, which identifies him by his IP address. Now that playing person turns off the computer. The IP 1235 is available again. If you now dial in and your ISP gives that 1235 to you. The game server is still 'looking' if the player at 1235 is present by sending data packets to him. And now - surprise - your firewall pops up with something like 'Attempted Intrusion "TCP_violent_gameserver" against your machine was detected and blocked' - even if you were 'just' checking your emails or browsing Renderosity. See what this is about? Of course, there is the faint possibility that someone is doing a portscan on your computer - with a billion possible IPs to scan, this is still more unlikely than being struck by lightning. But that would not result in one, but in possibly several thousand messages from your firewall... And if your ports are correctly configured, you don't need to be afraid (but then you also would not need a firewall, right...?). But then there's still another possibility: the server of Renderosity has caught a virus or worm. That, however, would be, let's say, rather not so good....