I just finished cleaning out a friends PC that was severely infected with virus, trojans and spyware. One of the worst that I have seen...probably nothing compared to what a lot of you guys have seen. This is the second time in a few years that I have rescued them.

The owners of the computer have no idea as to how they became infected and all attempts on my part to explain it went right over their heads. All they really want to do with it is check their email and print out Google maps.

They also allow their grandchildren to use it to play games when they come to visit. As soon as I heard that I said that that was probably how most of it happened, but they swore that nothing was downloaded other than the games, which they said are the same games that they play on their home computer. They supposedly have no problems there. I didn't pursue that line of thought anymore.

Anyway, they are connected to the internet directly through a cable modem. There is no router with a NAT firewall to protect them so I was thinking of installing a software FW, like Comodo, or something similar. Problem is that I don't know that much about any of the software FWs, as I don't use any. I have a hardware FW.

I don't want to put something on their machine that is going to be popping up alerts every two minutes about changes being made or something trying to connect to the internet. They wouldn't know what to do with them and I don't want to be getting calls from them every time it happens.

So my question is which FW would be best suited for these people in this situation? I guess what I need is a firewall for dummies, if there is such a thing.

The OS is XP SP3, 32 bit.

Thanks...Randy