first of all, I would recommend for you to get an old computer and stick two ehernet cards in it -- one for the modem to connect to, the other one to connect to the router as the modem (that way it will be a barrier between your network and the internet) and let it act as a firewall, proxy and mail server (you could configure it to block out bogus emails). If that can't be accomplished, I'd suggest the Eudora email client, or the Mozilla / Netscape one. As for antivirus software, I've found Panda Antivirus to be bery good, catching more viruses then Symantec's anti-virus and featuring free updates for life.