Your router will act as a firewall as long as you lock it down. Change the name of the router connection, and change the password pronto, if you haven't already. Depending on the router you can go in and make sure all ports are closed. Typically port 113 (I think) is left open and its a good idea to use port forwarding to forward it to a nonexistant local IP.

I'm not a hacker so I don't know what people can see coming off your connection, but I doubt if they can see many specifics like webpages visited etc. without some major skills. They would have to get into your machine or your ISPs to do that.

There's anumber of sites you can visit which will interogate your connection to see how open you are. grc.com is one, look for the Shields Up link. Also I think dslreports.com does something similar. I don't know too much about it since once I got it locked down, I forget about it. I think Nick mentioned once that he locks his down so tight that only his individual mac addresses are allowed through. Seems like overkill to me, but more security is better than less.

-Steve G.