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stopping by... hey there... the best way to avoid viruses are these three points: --get antivirus and turn on the options to automatically update your virus definitions, and to screen your email. Norton AntiVirus has worked well for me, others are good too. --if you have Outlook or Outlook Express, turn off the Preview Pane --most importantly, DO NOT OPEN ATTACHMENTS. Yes, I'm shouting. I'll say it again. DO NOT OPEN ATTACHMENTS. Even if they're you're friends. *Especially* if they're your friends. Viruses are executed on your machine by opening attachments 99% of the time. If somebody sends you an attachment, and you want to know if it's real, ask them first before opening. Otherwise, delete them. Can I say this any stronger? Even if you use Eudora, Netscape, Opera, etc. you can infect yourself by opening a virus attachment. You may not send it on, but some are malicious and will destroy your data as surely as if you had been using a Microsoft product. I say *especially* from your friends because as Tom points out, viruses send themselves through your Address Book. Your address is in your friend's address book, so if your buddy is infected, you are *more* likely to get infected. (The other 1% of infections, for those keeping score, are those that are executed by looking at the email (thus, turn off the Preview Pane), or those who read Usenet newsgroups through an HTML-enabled newsreader. If you don't read newsgroups don't worry, if you do, use a text-only option, or a program like Agent that defaults to text-only). I use Outlook and I've never been infected with a virus using these precautions, even though they've been sent to me (Norton told me so). Practice safe computing. take care, Paul