07 Jan 2009, 9:52 pm
Even if an anti virus apparently removes a virus there is no guarantee that the computer is 100% clean of all malicious programs. As a result you may want to consider re installing Windows if you get a worm, or even better yet, put on a better more secure OS such as Ubuntu, which is free as in price, but also freedom ( http://www.opensource.org http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html ). With Trojans apparently the user or the malicious Cracker/Blackhat has to open them before they even work. Running Windows with a limited account most of the time with admin only being used when it is really needs to be, as well as using a more secure browser instead of the rather insecure Internet Explorer, such as Mozilla Firefox or Opera, will help a lot with Windows security. With XP the first or only user becomes admin by default, when doing this any default security that their otherwise will be with a limited account is turned off. An admin account gives full power to the user, but also malicious programs.
I used the correct terms in the previous paragraph. The media use the term hacker which is completely wrong, because it is another name for a programmer.
Orwell wrote:
While we're on the subject of security, is it necessary to get a third-party firewall or is it safe to stick with the one that comes default in Windows? For now I'm running XP in virtualbox and keeping most of my internet use in Ubuntu.
The Windows firewall is only basic. If an operating system is Internet connected, it should have a firewall, ideally a hardware one, because as far as I know they are much better than software firewalls.sanndr wrote:
The default Windows XP firewall isn't very good at all; it does not prevent random applications from phoning home, it mostly only prevents unsollicited incoming traffic on predefined ports, not ports that you might not even know have been opened up by one application or an other.
Indeed0_equals_true wrote:
Pretty much all anti virus software, free or not, is nagware.
"Your life will end if you don't turn on this security feature!" sort of thing.
Exactly so why not use an alternative OS where you don't need anti virus or anti spyware? For example a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu."Your life will end if you don't turn on this security feature!" sort of thing.
Linux distro and Unix distribution alternatives have been designed to be more secure than Windows. In fact to get infected with any sort of malicious programs on most if not all Linux distros and Unix distributions the user, would have to know what they are doing. Well that or have no firewall and a really stupid root/sudo password such as 123.
What is the best anti virus program? A Linux or Unix distribution
!0_equals_true wrote:
It is also not great is you computer is part of a bot net. But in many cases antivirus programs completely failt to pick up these sort of threats.
IndeedThink of the thousands and thousands of viruses and spyware and other types of malicious programs, that have been made for Windows. Now check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet to get an idea about what can happen if your Windows install has such programs installed, as well as stealing personal data, such as bank account details, if you have been doing online banking or Internet shopping.
lau wrote:
No AV ever "catches everything".
When a new (not a trivially changed) virus comes out, every system is susceptible to it, until someone notices it, reports it, someone else then analyses it, finds out how it works, works out how to recognise it, and adds it to their AV database.
So... people who complain that "XYZ anti-virus is no good because it let a virus onto my system" are being unrealistic.
When a new (not a trivially changed) virus comes out, every system is susceptible to it, until someone notices it, reports it, someone else then analyses it, finds out how it works, works out how to recognise it, and adds it to their AV database.
So... people who complain that "XYZ anti-virus is no good because it let a virus onto my system" are being unrealistic.
Indeed!
sanndr wrote:
AV are in a catch-up industry not preventive.
That's truecrackedpleasures wrote:
I have been using AVG for a long time, never any complaints until 3 weeks ago AVG wrongly detected a Trojan Horse on my machine. It was a false positive and removed a very important .dll file which was no Trojan Horse at all. As a consequence my PC went in loops and could not properly restart again. Only a week later a guy I know who is more IT minded could resolve the issue, but by then I had to rely a week on internet cafes. So my confidence in AVG is a bit blurred right now
If you had a Live CD ( http://www.livecdlist.com/ ) you could have booted your computer from that until your problem was solved and used the Internet on that. Of course if your computer had dual booted with an alternative OS such as Ubuntu, that would have been great. Then you could have of course used that for the Internet, as well as loads of other stuff.crackedpleasures wrote:
Thing is: your machine can only handle with 1 antivirus and removing a program often is not that safe as they leave little bits and pieces on your hard drive which prevent the new antivirus from working properly (even some paid antivirus machines use this trick to make sure customers stick with them - I did customer support for such a company and they made sure uninstalling it was a real hassle) and I figure this is not worth the risk when AVG will probably want to save their reputation and make sure such a flaw never happens again.
That all sounds pretty much true. However depending on which anti virus programs are installed, more than one can work nicely on a computer together. Obviously though don't have both scanning at the same time.crackedpleasures wrote:
Sometimes the best protection is to just not take big risks on the web, even the best antivirus will not stop every single virus.
Very true, and no such thing as the best antivirus, only peoples opinions, well except for alternative OS's as I already put.crackedpleasures wrote:
I am not sure if you can have two firewalls on your computer without them both disturbing each others functioning. If it is not possible to have two firewalls working at once, then I would not risk to go through uninstalling the windows firewall when most of the time it works fine enough. If 2 firewalls is perfectly fine then a second lock on the door is never a bad choice ...
I guess it depends on the firewalls if two software firewalls will work nicely together or not. Hardware firewalls are probably the best, and having a good one should be just fine for alternative OS's, but with Windows you may want to have a good software firewall as well, instead of using the Windows firewall. The windows firewall can be disabled, you can't just uninstall it.It's so great being able to read about viruses for Windows, and think oh well it won't effect my computer. I tend to use Ubuntu, if I decide to rarely boot Vista Home Premium, well I know how to run it without getting malicious programs. However for the time being anyway, just in case, I have Avast.
lau wrote:
As you are running XP as a virtual machine, Orwell, I'd suggest you take a snapshot of the virtual disc you are using for XP (tar cjf xpdisc.tar.bz2 xpdisk.xpi). That way, should XP commit hara-kiri, you just replace the disc with the backup (tar xjf xpdisc.tar.bz2). It'll need updates, but it's a lot quicker than re-installing it, plus all the applications, and tweaking it all to your liking.
Or you can open the hidden .virtualbox folder in Home and copy your VDI (unless it's somewhere else) as a backup to some where. Then if you want to use that backup you add it as the virtual hard disk in Virtualbox.
Orwell which Linux/Unix distros have you been using? Psychical hard disk installs? Virtual machines?
07 Jan 2009, 9:58 pm
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