The reason i've said that you should not use a firewall is because 4 months ago, when i've started to enter on the Internet, I used Zone Alarm Pro and somebody flood me. And the problem was that this guy wasn't a real hacker. He was just a newbie that used a program made by somebody else but he did this inspite of my firewall. he disconected me in 5 minutes. Perhaps the reason was that i use a dial-up conection (I am from Romania ) ). So I apologize if somebody thought that I gave that advice for dark reasons. And excuse my english - is not my native language.