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<blockquote data-quote="PurplePCEater" data-source="post: 577469" data-attributes="member: 235">The activity is probably just casued by your ISP doing a broadcast across their entire network to ensure the cable modem is alive - it's almost certainly nothing to be worried about. I get activity every few minutes on mine and the firewall logs tell me that it's nothing more than a multicast broadcast. (If that means nothing to you, don't worry - it's innocuous)That said, if you're using an always-on connection (and even if you're not, though dynamic IPs assigned through dialups aren't so likely a target) you really should be running a firewall.Personally I don't like Zone Alarm - I find it interferes too much and whines incessantly, so I use Tiny Personal Firewall instead (<a href="http://www.tinysoftware.com/" target="_blank">http://www.tinysoftware.com</a> ) on each of the 'doze boxes I've got running. There's a dedicated Linux firewall between the LAN and the cable modem which blocks anything inbound that hasn't been specifically requested from a client machine, but the addition of the firewall software on each of the clients means I can block any outbound traffic that I don't want. It's quite disturbing the number of times a day that a Windows machine wants to access the outside world (particularly to MS). Stops (and identifies, by means of the requested network access) all sorts of spyware and other unpleasantness that can creep in without your knowledge.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="PurplePCEater, post: 577469, member: 235"] The activity is probably just casued by your ISP doing a broadcast across their entire network to ensure the cable modem is alive - it's almost certainly nothing to be worried about. I get activity every few minutes on mine and the firewall logs tell me that it's nothing more than a multicast broadcast. (If that means nothing to you, don't worry - it's innocuous) That said, if you're using an always-on connection (and even if you're not, though dynamic IPs assigned through dialups aren't so likely a target) you really should be running a firewall. Personally I don't like Zone Alarm - I find it interferes too much and whines incessantly, so I use Tiny Personal Firewall instead ([URL=http://www.tinysoftware.com/]http://www.tinysoftware.com[/URL] ) on each of the 'doze boxes I've got running. There's a dedicated Linux firewall between the LAN and the cable modem which blocks anything inbound that hasn't been specifically requested from a client machine, but the addition of the firewall software on each of the clients means I can block any outbound traffic that I don't want. It's quite disturbing the number of times a day that a Windows machine wants to access the outside world (particularly to MS). Stops (and identifies, by means of the requested network access) all sorts of spyware and other unpleasantness that can creep in without your knowledge. [/QUOTE]

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