Research body, the Pew Internet and American Life Project, found that only 9% had a "good idea" what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) was.

Awareness of what "phishing" was, online bank scam e-mails, also scored low. Only 29% knew what it meant.

But "spam", "firewall", and "spyware" were all well-known to surfers.

This is level of knowledge is not surprising considering the large number of spam e-mails the average internet user receives.

Low levels of knowledge about very new buzzwords which early adopters frequently use, such as "podcasts", was unsurprising since it has been barely a year since the term was coined.

The study was also carried out before Apple iTunes 4.9 was released with the ability to search and subscribe to podcasts.

RSS is becoming a popular way of keeping automatically aware of website updates and has been a growing presence on websites and weblogs. It is essentially automated surfing.

Portals like BT Yahoo broadband are starting to push and explain it, to get more people using it.

BT sees it as the next step in customisation on the web, but many websites are still experimenting with the best way to present and explain it to the average surfer.

Net exposure

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Only 3% of the more than 1,330 net users questioned had never heard of spam, firewalls or spyware.

Equally, net users have had a lot of exposure to stories about security threats on the net which have reinforced the message about installing firewalls and other protection to stay secure online.

But security experts have been warning for some time about the changing nature of net threats, and phishing is one of the growing threats that surfers should be aware of.

Phishing e-mails try to fool people into giving away personal and login details on fake websites made to look like real bank sites.

Cyber criminals have become increasingly involved in creating phishing scam messages and sites.

As a result, increasingly sophisticated techniques mean that the bogus sites have become more difficult to distinguish from the legitimate ones.

Sex and age

Levels of awareness and knowledge about net security amongst older net users - those over 65 - was encouraging, however.

Eighty-five percent of the over-65s knew what spam was, compared to 88% of 18 to 29-year-olds.

Although the gaps in knowledge about phishing were greater between the age groups. Fifty-five percent of 18 to 29-year-olds knew what is was compared to 31% of over-65s.

The study suggested that "as a rule", men tended to be more aware of the latest terms than women. But the variations in awareness were not huge.

The differences could reflect different uses and habits men and women might have when they go online, as well as who takes responsibility for the security of the family computer.

The study also loooked at knowledge differences between those with broadband connections and those surfers still on dial-up.

Ninety-four percent of broadband compared to 85% of dial-up users knew what spam was.

But only 43% of dial-up users compared to 65% of broadbanders knew about adware. Knowledge of web cookies was also fairly low amongst those with slower net connections.

Only 59% of them compared to 81% of broadband users knew the term.