Greetings.
I use Spybot S&D, Adaware, ZoneAlarm, AdSubtract and of course an A/V pgm.
I use RegCleaner 4.3 by Jouni Vuorio to control the windows startup list. I
regularly get updated with MS and these others mentioned here.
My communication softwares are OE v6, IE v6, MSN and AOL and Yahoo IM's
only.
I have done some reading here, and received some appreciated replies, about
HOSTS file. While I'm confused about why HOSTS needs to be capitalized while
the original name by windows was in lower case, I can just take the groups
word for that. One more thing on this though; Is it to replace or
compliment other ad blockers? If compliment, is there a preferred order of
execution and can the order be adjusted?

With the talk about hijackers and invisible html code that can make anything
happen, this has me concerned that I may not be protected enough. I
consider myself fortunate as in the 3 yrs of web surfing, I've had only
about 4 cases of infections. I've practiced what you've preached. I even
read any unknown senders e-mail via 'message source' to see if it's anything
I trust or want to read in html code. Now, if there's anything new I need
to know, I'd like to know before getting hit. Besides adding CWShredder,
HijackThis and doing this HOSTS thing to my above software list, is there
any other programs or procedures someone would care to inform me about that
would decrease the stress of dealing with potential problems?

Thanks to one and all!
Kevin