 Poster: A snowHead
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Just to summarize some of the contrary information in this thread:-
* don't log in and surf the web with administrator (root) priviledges - viruses need Admin rights to modify OS files, boot sectors etc so this will virtually eliminate the chance of infection through that vector
* turn off any services you don't need to run - there is information on Google on how to do this
* if you are behind a router with NAT and you've not opened any incoming ports you probably don't need to bother with a firewall. If you are roaming with a laptop and WiFi and a Modem make sure you install a firewall
* don't use Microsoft products for Internet access. For web surfing use Mozilla with the ABP (ad blockup) and NoScript addons. You may want to use webmail and be cautious about attachments - non executables such as GIFs, JPEGS, DivX are ok. WMV and word docs can be dangerous. Ask for Word in another format like RTF or ODP.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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davidof, You forgot the most important
Buy a Mac 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I have been happy hidden behind Zone Alarm and Antivir without a problem for 6 years. I once had Norton which slowed my PC down to the extent of me thinking I needed a replacement PC, uninstalling it (difficult) gave it a new lease of life. I run a Spybot and Adaware check weekly.
http://www.free-av.com/
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Zone Alarm is fantastic for identifying what new virus has killed your PC, when Norton hasn't detected it. Norton is all the bad things listed above. I use Panda which is £45 for 3 PCs, has a firewall if you want and has been excellent so far. A PC Pro best buy.
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| chrise1967 wrote: |
I know this sounds risky but I don't use anti-virus software. I occassionally use the online checkers and never had a virus. The main reason I do not use anti virus software is because it slows down my pc and causes system crashes.
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Norton does, and possibly some others will. The decent ones (e.g. any of those recommended in this thread) don't crash the PC, and make no noticable difference to performance on a modern PC.
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A virus checker is only good for old viruses.
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Once again, not true of most of the decent ones - unless you define "old" as anyting first discovered more than a few hours ago. All the decent ones will update their definitions several times per day.
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Now I am an IT techie and do not open attachments that are obvious trojans like .vbs .exe, .cmd etc etc. I don't download free software unless I know the source. If I was to write a virus maybe I would target the virus checking software. Don't waste your money buying virus checking software, I my mention they are worst than a virus. |
Please do not tar all virus checkers with the same brush. They are not all Norton.
Not that I would "waste my money" buying it, when two of the best ones are free anyhow.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Thu 6-09-07 16:32; edited 1 time in total
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| Quote: |
Once again, not true of most of the decent ones - unless you define "old" as anyting first discovered more than a few hours ago. All the decent ones will update their definitions several times per day.
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There is no way a virus checking companies can identify viruses that quickly and send fixes via updated definitions in a few hours. I sometimes wonder who writes these viruses. Any programme running in background will have a performance impact however it may not be noticible to the casual user on a decent PC.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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As someone who works in IT and has had to deal with some of the global viruses that used to come out, I've seen Trend write and release fixes in under 4 hours.
Personally, I'd sooner have my computer run 0.01% slower and have some form of check on there, than have it run 0.01% faster, but have no checks, but maybe I'm being overly cautious 
(I'm not exactly a casual user, my laptop is my job, it's currently connected to two iSeries in Malaysia, one in India and a Domino server that I'd really like to blow up)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I wouldn't bother with anti-virus software if I didn't have kids. I have never encountered a virus that I didn't immediately recognise as suspicious, and I don't consider the slender protection offered av software as being adequate recompense for the disadvantages - delayed boot time, slowdowns, system crashes, etc. If you get a virus, who cares? If you have backups, you can disinfect and rebuild a PC in a couple of hours, and most of that time is spent waiting for software to install.
The complexity of antivirus software is one of the main reasons behind PC obsolesence. An 8-10 year old PC would be perfectly adequate for running XP, office software, an email client and a web browser, but any antivirus software will bring it to its knees.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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McAfee on work PCs - did have Norton on one PC but it was rubbish and when we got a wireless network it threw quite a lot of spanners in the works!
AVG, Zone Alarm, Adaware on home PC 
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This is a good thread to highlight who I should let connect to my network, and who I shouldn't!
It appears some peole believe that viruses/trojans/spyware only come as attachments in emails.
I use Firefox with adblock and noscript installed - that doesn't slow my computer down more than a millisecond or two, but it stops popups etc. Maybe I should ditch that stuff too. I'd rather have a couple of seconds delay on boot-up while a TSR runs than have to back up my PC every day, which takes a lot longer, and then have to do restores when I find infections.
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You know it makes sense.
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An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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| chrise1967 wrote: |
| ....... Now I am an IT techie and do not open attachments that are obvious trojans like .vbs .exe, .cmd etc etc. I don't download free software unless I know the source. If I was to write a virus maybe I would target the virus checking software. Don't waste your money buying virus checking software, I my mention they are worst than a virus. |
It's all well and good saying "don't waste your money" but not all of us are IT techies and know what we are doing 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Jonny Jones wrote: |
| I wouldn't bother with anti-virus software if I didn't have kids. I have never encountered a virus that I didn't immediately recognise as suspicious, and I don't consider the slender protection offered av software as being adequate recompense for the disadvantages - delayed boot time, slowdowns, system crashes, etc. If you get a virus, who cares? If you have backups, you can disinfect and rebuild a PC in a couple of hours, and most of that time is spent waiting for software to install. |
Why the hell would I want to spend a couple of hours disinfecting and rebuilding my PC? Not that I could "rebuid" it in a couple of hours anyhow with the amount of stuff I run.
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The complexity of antivirus software is one of the main reasons behind PC obsolesence. An 8-10 year old PC would be perfectly adequate for running XP, office software, an email client and a web browser, but any antivirus software will bring it to its knees. |
If you seriously believe that utter rubbish, then I suggest you find out that there are mopre anti viris programs out there than Norton.
If you have a resident anti virus program which takes as much as 1% of the processing power that Office does, then you have a seriously cr@ppy anti virus program.
Email clients and a web browser aren't quite as resource hungry as Office, but will still use FAR more than any reasonable anti virus program.
What you wrote there is just quite simpley utterly utterly false.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I think running AV software is just good manners. On one occasion I have had to phone someone up and tell them to unplug their computer from the internet and stop sending infected e mails out. Running Avast or AVG is thought-free automatic process which makes no effective difference to speed.
Much of the pressure to update computers, and obsolescence surely comes from increasing operating system bloat?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I see the dirty Mac brigade have turned up.
alex_heney, totally agree.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Typical of that rat BernardC - posts a trolling topic on an highly contentious issue and then disappears
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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grisoft.com AVG - its free. been using it for years with no problems
I use Windows defender for spyware - jubbly!
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Wear The Fox Hat, Doesn't show your clubcard points
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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alex_heney, I believe you've missed Jonny Jones's point (whether it's right or wrong).
He is stating that he doesn't believe it practical to keep clean (say) a Windows 98 machine bought in 2000 - one that is perfectly capable of email / browsing / word processing, etc. Your response just compares the resource requirements of current security programs with current application programs.
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The performance impact of ant-virus software is very slight on a new PC. But even relatively lightweight anti-virus software like AVG makes an enormous difference on an old PC with 256MB or less of RAM, as I discovered a few months ago when I was helping out a friend. On her PC, AVG added at least 30 seconds to system startup time and slowed Word to the point of non-usability. It's easy to say that she should buy a new PC, but she simply doesn't have the cash.
But even on a new PC, anti-virus software causes problems. On my PC, some games crash when a full system scan kicks, and a few months back I had to completely re-install windows after an AVG update bombed out part way through; also, AVG adds about 5 seconds to system startup. A reasonable estimate is that running av software on a modern home PC costs you about 2 hours a year of your life.
That's not much, but, if you're sensible, you'll hardly ever encounter a virus. I'm just suggesting that if you're careful (and most people aren't), the risk/reward equation isn't as clear-cut as it's often made out to be. As for backups, I don't take them to protect from viruses - I'm much more concerned about hard drive failure or accidental deletion.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Jonny Jones, how do you define "being careful" - and how long does this "being careful" take compared to, say, the 2 hours you claim it takes each year in extra boot up time.
...I did some maths based on your figures...5 seconds * 365 days = just over 30 minutes, so unless you start your machine 4 times a day, then I don't know how you get to 2 hours. (although maybe that's based on the amount of time you need to spend "being careful" )
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Being careful means not opening doubtful emails and attachments, using a spam filter, not installing software of doubtful provenance, ensuring all security patches are automatically applied, using Firefox or Opera instead of IE, not visiting p*rn or other dodgy websites, switching off autostart for removable media and preventing automatic boot from the wrong drive. All this is good practice and doesn't take any time.
My two hours estimate allows for a few game crashes and periodic maintenance of the software (eg the Windows re-install forced on me by AVG that I mentioned above).
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A survey by "which" makes interesting reading - they conclude the free stuff is as good as commerical software
http://www.contractoruk.com/news/003432.html
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much  on Fri 7-09-07 9:50; edited 1 time in total
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You know it makes sense.
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Jonny Jones, ah, I don't have dodgy games on my computer to cause crashes, I use it for work, and posting on forums, but still, if your computer is crashing 3+ times a day, you may need to check it for viruses, and upgrade your firewall and anti-spyware.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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i.know the answer to all your problems i.think secretly you all do to i.wont harp on about it all i.will say is i.never have any problems when i.use my computer where i.live
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Poster: A snowHead
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| CANV CANVINGTON wrote: |
| all i.will say is i.never have any problems when i.use my computer where i.live |
Yes, but most of us live on Earth, so don't have your advantages 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Frosty the Snowman, you can get ZA for free, it just takes a few extra clicks, and you only get the firewall bit (but if you have the other software, you don't need to pay for the extra bits)
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Wear The Fox Hat, Thanks, shall try again when i get home.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Frosty the Snowman, How did you dump Norton, I understood that doing so can cause problems? Did you have any? I need to do it on the Kids PC.
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boredsurfin, Wasn't too bad. I used the "add/remove programmes" in the start>.settings>control panel but then also had to download the Norton Removal Tool from the Symantec web site as it was getting stuck. No trace as of last night.
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| boredsurfin wrote: |
| Wear The Fox Hat, Doesn't show your clubcard points |
Should be around 1500 I think, you got an extra 999 when I bought the same one.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I use Nortons on all my business based computers. No major issues to report. I'd stick with what you have.
We tried McAfee but that didn't give very good results and got in the way sometimes.
Not tried AVG, have tried SpyBot and Adware, these were OK but not much point when Norton did the same job. But I guess without Norton then they're worth installing.
I would not recommend the do nothing approach - there are a lot of ways your computer can be infected and "just being careful" doesn't work. Sorry, but that's a fact.
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. . .and another thing. AVG is free for non-commercial use. So I guess in this thread there are two types of users. Those of us who have a computer as a business tool, and earn money with it and to that end cannot afford to have anything go wrong with it. And those of us who have a home PC who really just need a basic level of protection.
Being in the former group I have to say that I would spend more on my PC being protected since if I have any problems it costs me time, for which we cannot bill our clients. This means we don't make as much money, which reduces the chances of me affording a skiing holiday or doing other things . . .
Infected computers are a deadly when you run your own business, the extra effort to protect yourself is well worth it.
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FAQ
) Already had adaware.
