Quote - Not an endorsement, simply one I found a few weeks ago. I do second the endorsement of Comodo. In addition to traditional firewall functions, it provides good functionality for protecting the registry, catching stealth installs etc. They also have an anti-virus you can install but I prefer Avast.

If I were more concerned, I'd probably install a virtual machine (with VirtualPC ,  VMWare etc) or a dual boot and a clean OS install and then use only that to connect to sites where I was going to submit sensitive information - and use it for nothing else.

Thank you very much.  I'm exploring both of these.  One of my neighbors does the VirtualPC thing and he seems very satisfied with it.  He has a lot of time on his hands - fully retired - and a real geeky type AND almost 80.  Almost deserves a "Who knew?" but wouldn't want to seem age-ist.

Thanks again.