One of my partners has put together a fairly comprehensive Beginners Guide To Securing A PC. However, Martin has one piece of advice which I don't personally think is a good tip for beginners. He argues that a software firewall gives a false sense of security, as trojans and worms can still exploit other vulnerabilities.
Although, I agree that this is true and that a properly patched machine could get away without running a firewall I think this is very dangerous advice to give to a computer novice. Yes, running a firewall isn't the only solution to going online safely but it's a big component in my view.
I've never risked running a computer without a firewall, although I was tempted in the past because of the resource drain, but now that I've got PC-cillin I'll never switch off my firewall. When I think about what could happen and how quickly it could happen, I would never take the risk.
