A;nti-virus software and wireless

You'll need anti-virus software on both computers.

I'm puzzled by your question, "Or just he one with the router??". Aren't both of your systems connected to the 2300 router, and the 2300 connected to the cable or DSL modem?

Jim

My main computor is in the family room. It has the Toshiba cable moden. Then I have the Dell 2300 wireless router. From there it goes to the other computor upstairs. The one upstairs is the wireless. Main computor is direct to the cable source. I hope this helps

So you must be using "Internet Connection Sharing" on the computer that's directly connected to the cable modem. That means that the machine connected to the cable modem must be turned on in order for the wireless machine to gain access to the Internet, right?

That's a somewhat unusual configuration for a network including a router like the TM2300, but it's clearly working! As far as antivirus software is concerned, both machines need such software installed on them, since both are potentially able to become infected. The machine directly connected to the Internet via the cable modem should also have a personal firewall installed.

One of the advantages of the  network topology illustrated here is that the only device directly connected to the Internet would be the TM2300 itself.

Jim

That's the same setup i'm using. My main computer is connected directly to the internet through a WRT54g wireless broadband router (there are 4 direct connect RJ45 connectors on the back); the router is connected to my broadband modem. My laptop connects wirelessly. All I need to do to connect to the internet on my laptop is to turn on the router and modem. The router's job is to send packets received from one source to another, or other(s) in the case of multiple computers. turning on the main computer has no effect on the laptop since the broadband modem is the entry point for all the incoming packets. The router will then take those packets and determine which computer connected to it should receive them. This is accomplished by imbedding the source IP address of the requesting computer within each frame/layer of the packet being sent and received. That's a normal setup. It's nice to only turn on the router and modem when you want to wirelessly surf. I could've placed the modem and WRT54g all by itself anywhere in the house, then connect to it wirelessly for all computers. However, to setup the router it's easier to do from one that's directly connected, than from one wirelessly.

Now, reguarding anti-virus/ trojan and firewall software. The WRT54g acts as a basic hardware firewall with a built in proxy. Since it doesn't have an anti-virus/ trojan software running on it (it's basically a small computer running a dedicated proxy web-server), and it doesn't rebuild an entire file in memory before passing it on to the requesting computer (it just routes indivudual packets from one source to other(s) - a file can contain from one to infinity packet(s) for realtime streaming media such as webcams), so it couldn't realistically do any virus checking since a virus program could, and more than likely be, broken down into multiple pieces (packets) during transmission. It's only after it's reassembled on the receiving end does a virus program (if upto date) would recognize what it is and take appropriate action.

So, a router sends small pieces of information, and an antivirus/ trojan program will look at the entire file, once reassembled, even checking it's internal data for traces of virus code. Therefore, all computers connected to a network should have an antivirus/ trojan and firewall program running on it.

Sorry this is so long, but there's alot more information that needs to be said on securing an internet connection and running antivirus/ trojan programs on every computer. Just rememeber, every point on a system where data can enter is a potential path for a virus, trojan or a hacker.

Mike.