Possibly a waste of time to interject here, but... I used to be on dialup. Finally got fed up with waiting on DSL and got cable. We have 3 PCs (on a network) in the house, so I bought one of Netgear's routers with NAT...NAT being a form of firewall. NOW, before this, I had Black Ice installed and was getting audible hits and warnings all the time. Since the the router install, Black Ice has gotten about 5 or 6 hits in 2 months. So...if this is any kind of possibility for you, you should consider it. The router cost me $99. For me, that is worth the added protection I have now...data, sometimes, is priceless. FWIW.