To prevent people accessing your PC get a firewall from
http://www.zonelabs.com
get it whiles ite free

thanks fishfood!

kewl link u got there!

keep up the good work :)

Good i know zonelab its a cool one and i have it it really works but any one knows another software (free) for protection?
and hey if a hacker attacks ya (specially if he is from oman..how can u identify him??? so u can know who is he???
and which software helps ya to know him?
cause some times i feel that hackers need to be punished..

If you open a dos window from start --> programs --> MS-dos prompt and type cd..
then type netstat -a i think and it will display what your PC is upto. Also if you type netstat help all the commands will be revealed to you. If you get a foreign IP address you don't recognise (like icq or ie 5.0) then it might be someone scanning your port, which means they are invading your pc . Report the Ip address to your ISP and they will sort it out , but as my faith in Omantel is low i doubt they will do anything. If your getting attacked in Mirc chat then report the IP address and any relevant info to IRCOPs or mirchelp channel. There are other firewalls i believe there is one that is called black ice and that is free. The other ones are not very user friendly though. Zonelabs is the best around i think. Although i hear there are ways of getting around firewalls .
http://grc.com/su-firewalls.htm and online scan can be found at http://housecall.antivirus.com and another list of firewalls
http://grc.com/default.htm.
to comapre firewalls :
http://www.securityportal.com/articles/pf_main20001023.html

fishfood kewl stuff u got there, but just a small comment about what u said. what does listening mean in the status?

It means that the port is listening open and it is available to "listen" to the programs network or server i think. So if its icq or your email client it will be listening to icq network or to omantel

also the port is open and available to establish a connection with other remote servers/networsks. I THINK ! And hackers can use this to their advantage. So a firewall is good becasue it will block unwanted conenctions

yeah, right now i am behind a firewall, so i guess that i am well protected from hackers. i met one of my friends online once and asked him to try and hack into my PC and he was not able to!

anyone care to try?