PC Tools Firewall Plus

I have an Amd Ahtlon 64x2 Dual Core processor 4200 and 2.2Ghz with 2G ram running Vista Home Premium and would like to ask a few questions on a firewall I downloaded . I know windows has one and I use it, but I don't feel 100% sure it works as well as a standalone one. I have PC Tools Firewall Plus and it seems to be running well but I don't understand all the settings. I just want to be sure the default settings are ok or if there are some I should change plus there seems to be lots of in and outbound traffic. I would like you to see and tell me if it is normal. I don't know if blocking some things that are not blocked now will help with my email, I have hundreds of junk email everyday. I will send attachments for your perusal and maybe someone could help me with this. thank you in advance

I don't see any major problems there. All the ICMP settings, and there are a lot of them (more than I've seen in any firewall before) are largely not a major consideration so don't worry about those.

The firewall will not have any effect on spam at all. It's not designed to. You need a spam filter installed for that purpose. Many here use Mailwasher from firetrust.com. Takes a bit of practice and time to get it working and learning what your good vs spam emails are but it is quite good. It used to be free but is no longer ... perhaps others here will know of a good freebie.

Good email habits are also essential to reduce spam. Never respond to one, never click a link in one especially one that says it will remove you from the list (it only puts you on more lists), use an email address that wouldn't be in a spammers master dictionary (instead of johnsmith@ use j.smith01@ or similar). You'd need to set up a new email address for that unfortunately but sometimes it's worth it so long as you can let everyone who legitimately has your address be notified of the change.

Use a throwaway acc't like hotmail or yahoo etc for signing up for online groups, activities, games, forums etc. you can then keep the main home email address from being sold or traded by unscrupulous site owners.

thanks for the quick response fink. I don't know how you could read the attachments they came out so small but I am glad you could. I have another question about the Host Process for Windows Services, there are 5 listed, they are all in the same location and the same exe file. C:\Windows\System32\Svchost.exe. there is a lot of traffic in and out through this, 2 of them don't have any traffic the other 3 are example: Packets sent..129, received..66, bytes sent...114,104, received ..16,419 the next one packets sent..59,received..0, bytes sent..21,567, received..0,the 3rd one is the biggest packets sent..106..received 63...bytes sent..8,188, received..22,369...all from svchost, is it safe to block that exe or no? Thanks

Don't block it. Svchost needs to send/receive data regularly in order for the computer to work. Largely related to DNS resolving and networking.

The attachments came out full page for me.

Thanks fink I guess I worry too much for nothing. I will take your advise and leave it alone.
Concerning the spam in my email I will get mailwasher and hopefully it will cut down the mess. I went away for a week and had over 500 junk emails when I came back. The strange part is I only use my email for contacts only and I have a hotmail act for internet use so how it is getting filtered to my primary act has me stumped. Thanks again for good advise