Hi FlapsForty,
Zone Alarm and AdAware may have issues only if you have, I believe, the full version of Adaware which is payware and it constantly monitors your system for various spyware etc so it is always loaded and running ... I use Adaware only when required and no problems. Make sure, before you run Adaware, say once a week or once a month as you see fit, that you update the signature files so it scans for the latest spyware out there. The adaware signature files can be downloaded automatically from adaware and installed, as long as you are connected to the internet first.
**ROUTER: As suggested by MikeDurward, the router alternative is probably the perfect choice, as it completely hides your PC's IP address, even from your Internet Service Provider - or ISP. The router is a device to which your modem would connect. The modem connects directly to the "outside" - this outside is your ISP. But there is the router in between your PC and your modem so in essence, your computer is completely "inside" a physically (hardware) protected area and is never exposed to the internet. The good router has password protection and thus should be quite resistant to hacking and security compromises and also uses encryption to "scramble" data, making any hacker intercepting your personal info, unable to read it as it is encrypted (e.g. I saw a DLINK router in the store this week which had a maximum of 256-bit encrption.) It is the router which gets an IP address assigned to it by the ISP, not your PC.
** Definition of IP: your IP is your your network ID number. It is made up of those four sets of numbers separated by periods which you may have already seen. For example, 24.64.185.43. This address is unique (or should be in theory) on the internet and can be used to track down your PC. If you have a router, it is the router which has this IP assigned to it and the router is the device which communicates with the outside world - i.e. the internet. Your PC is in turn, assigned an "internal" (or local network) IP address which is "masked" or hidden from the internet by the router. An internal IP address has a specific range and cannot be anything outside of this range - example: 192.168.0.1 (the 192.168.x.y is one of the possible ranges used in internal or "private" IP network addressing and is also used for internal company networks). If it is outside the range, then it can be risking being a duplicate with an internet or external IP address and you'll have issues with connectivity to the internet.
** ZONEALARM VERSUS ROUTER: The difference between how ZoneAlarm or another "software" firewall works and how a router or "hardware" firewall (or one type of firewall for there are other more sophisticated computer/PC-based firewalls) is this: Zone Alarm cannot hide your IP address when it is requested by your ISP for otherwise, you won't be able to connect or maintain a connection to your internet as your ISP will disconnect you if you stop transmitting your "identity" which is done regularly by your PC. This is the "ping" or possibly other methods used by each ISP to make sure a PC is still connected to their service. ZoneAlarm does block many attempts of various kinds to communicate with your PC but cannot block your IP address at all times due to the above reason but will block transmission of your IP under certain conditions where it is not considered essential to maintain communication (e.g. communicating with the ZoneLabs support site, which is an option in ZA).
A router has its own IP address which can be arranged and configured to work with your ISP. It is the router which handles communication of your "identity" to your ISP, not your PC, transmitting its own EXTERNAL IP address periodically when requested by the ISP, so your PC does not have to do anything to communicate "directly" with the internet but rather communicates indirectly via the intermediary of your router.
So with a router, you have two IP addresses then: (1) an EXTERNAL IP address for the internet and (2) an INTERNAL IP address for your PC to communicate and be recognized by the router. This "cushion" created by the router makes your PC physically invisible at the HARDWARE level to the internet.
I hope I made sense about all this.
If you have any questions, let me know.
John
