[Paynesmanor]

I reciently became aware of botnet, I need to know if my AVG, and Zone alarm keep me clear of these botnets... I also have hijack this, and do not see anything out of the ordainary.

How can I tell if I am being used to send spam and other such stuff??

[lunarlander]

If you use web based mail like hotmail or gmail, then you can block outgoing smtp on the firewall and monitor the firewall logs for denys.

Antivirus and firewalls are good, dont forget to update windows.

[Paynesmanor]

How do I block Stmp? do I do it on my router? zone alarm firewall or gmail settings? Also Where do I check the log?

[lunarlander]

to block smtp, do an outgoing block on the firewall for TCP port 25. I dont use ZoneAlarm so I cant tell you where to look for the log.

Computers that a part of botnets can be made to do anything, sending out SPAM is one of them. Victim computers can also be commanded to ping a web site to its knees or execute other attacks on other computers.