Jenniferdoes,
It will protect you on a dialup. You can shut it down when you're not online.
The marketing on firewalls to aDSL and cablemodem customers is that if your computer is running, you are online, even if only your desktop is running.
Deep dark woods? sounds like Vermont. I have aDSL, half a mile away from me they have dialup. We are answering the call however, check out http://www.ecfiber.net