List of essentials (Score 0)

Spyware is teh bane of my working life. (Looking after an XP based Uni network with a very "free and easy" approach to private pcs like laptops etc) I always install the following on any machine not locked down by the Uni; Firebird (with pop-ups disabled), Thunderbird (for email with option for santised HTML on), Adaware (for spy-crud "accidents"), any Anti-virus and a simple firewall like Zonealarm (crappy but easy to handle for teh n00b). Its a sad state of affairs when you have to use so much 3rd party freebies to make a product anywhere near safe..... but hey, it all makes me look busy. I will never get over how fast peeps will click on "Yes" to any pop up that appears. Unfortunately, the only real answer to this sort of problem is to educate people in teh arcane practices of safe surfing. One thing I would love to see is a browser that, once a pc has been "infected" with this crap a number of times, would autodowngrade and only allow the user Lynx access to the web. Normal surfing would only be restored after the user had cleaned up and proved to their browser that they had learned their lesson!! Ahhhhh, sweet sweet revenge!