Globals question

Hi, (Warning, kind of newbie alert) I have created a script which will take a lot of values from a form I am getting various values entered into the script from variables like $customer_name, $product_id etc etc I just take and use those variables as is eg: I _DONT_ do: $customer_name== $_GET['page']; BUT my friend tells me that I should do that as "register globals" are off on a lot of servers....which is getting me quite confused. Should I convert all my scripts so it will work with register globals off? Then for "GET" I use $_GET and for "POST" I am guessing I will have to use $_POST, or should I use $_REQUEST? or (my favourite alternative) is just keep the code as is and if they dont have register globals on...tough luck! :-) What do you think? Because just thinking of going through all those damn variables one by one and converting them sure sounds like a pain in the....exactly what you thought :-) After going on google and searching for the answer I see that even the creator or PHP thinks that register globals should be on as putting it off does not add to a higher sense of security.(http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/767/) Any advise/suggestions/comments welcome. Cheers, -Ryan