I'm just curious, Emails: does simply openning an email have any type of risk of infection? I know if you open an attachment there is a risk, my anti virus says it monitors emails, does that include attachmets? IMs: I'm thinking about using "Live Messenger" and "Yahoo Messenger", how risky are they? Does simply adding a friend to your list have any risk of infection? or Answering an IM? And again my anti virus says it monitors it, so I really need a straight answer, please. Will it allow them to "worn" into my computer? The AV software I'm using is "Avast Internet security suit", How good is it? Several times I have gone to a Web page and it pops up a window claiming my machine has like 20 cookies, spyware, adware and viruses installed and that I should install and run their free scanning software. I did once and after the scan it gave a report but when I clicked the fix button, It just wanted me to purchase the software to remove all the infections it reported, and then it was pure ____ trying to uninstall the thing, which I finaly did. Avast was running at the time it scanned and after I uninstalled the POS, I ran a full scan of my system and Avast reported no problems at all. Is this just a terror tactic to sell me software that doesn't really do anything? Accept get my CC info? Are viruses truely a threat or is it all just a con? To get people all paniced and to buy software that doesn't do anything? I'm really getting confused about the whole Virus, spyware, adware BS, it seems like there is no one product that covers all the threats, and they are all following MSs lead and charging a yearly fee, for something I percive to do nothing at all but panic me into think there is actually a threat, when I'm behind several fire walls and other MS security measures. Can somebody give me some insight please. My Thanks to you.

Even with an Anti-virus no user is 100% protected from any malware - you can quote me on that, anyone who claims is pretty much lying because malwares are being develop, recycled and re-engineered every 2-3 hrs detection and solution gap time, that no AV in the world can detect and clean it. And on top of that people's security of using e-mail, messenger, browsing ( PC/mobile ) is only as good as the security awareness of the users : ) MVP Windows Security / CEH