Do I really need all this?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Scott
  • Start date Start date
Jim Scott said:
I use SpyBot, Adaware and Spyware blaster (as well as Avast ant-virus and
XP-SP2 firewall)
I feel that I am becoming paranoid.
I am on ISDN, but only connect when I need to.
I am aware that XP-SP2 only blocks incoming.

Assuming I have cleaned out all the Spyware and Trojans, would it not be
sufficient to now use a 2-way firewall like Outpost or ZA with the
anti-virus?
Click to expand...
Jim, stay the course. Many of these buggers get in 'behind' web pages so
they aren't doing anything you can see or stop with a firewall. Like
cookies - you don't see them, a firewall won't stop them.

You should keep all those programs up-to-date, and run a scan with them
every week or two. I'd much rather be a bit paranoid than suffer data
corruption, identity theft, etc.
 
-snip-
Usenet for me is via XNews. As you can probably tell, I like
application-specific clients rather than all-in-one suites...
Click to expand...
Time to update?
Xnews/??.01.30 (.exe dated Feb'05

J
 
Jim Scott said:
I use SpyBot, Adaware and Spyware blaster (as well as Avast ant-virus and
XP-SP2 firewall)
I feel that I am becoming paranoid.
I am on ISDN, but only connect when I need to.
I am aware that XP-SP2 only blocks incoming.

Assuming I have cleaned out all the Spyware and Trojans, would it not be
sufficient to now use a 2-way firewall like Outpost or ZA with the
anti-virus?
Click to expand...

well I get by just fine with Zone Alarm, AVG (anti-virus) and Ad-Aware . I
don't run Ad-Aware very often .. every two weeks .. the other thing that
keeps my system safe is Automatic downloading of critical updates from
Microsoft .... oh and I use the Firefox browser most of the time ..
 
Yes, you need it all. Depressing, isn't it?
Click to expand...

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, it all depends on your
browsing habits. I don't run anything but AVG in background, Kerio 2.1.5
and Sygate 5.6 Free (they get along well together.) The firewalls are
just for paranoia's sake - I am on dialup and rarely go anywhere that I
might get my feet dirty. AVG has saved me twice when I downloaded a file
from a questionable site.

No spyware, no viruses, nothing for 3 years. I use Firefox, Xnews, and
common sense.
 
JoeA said:
Short answer...Yes
Click to expand...

A better answer, No.

If you have a good backup system, like a partition saving program, a
disk imaging program, you only need a firewall.

When or if something goes wrong you can quickly restore the computer to
a fresh and clean installation.

Partition image software also allows you to experiment with your
computer.

For most people the operating system is installed in the computer and
cannot be changed without a lot of work to reinstall windows
afterwards. So you are locked, you cannot experiment with other
operating systems.

If you have the system backed up you can restore it anytime. That makes
it possible to try other OS's like linux, and it doesn't matter what
you do, you can restore the old system in a minute.
 
On 12 Jul 2005, wrote
Time to update?
Xnews/??.01.30 (.exe dated Feb'05
Click to expand...

Depends what one uses it for; this version does everything I want, and
if I wanted to upgrade I'd go to a different program (probably
XanaNews, which looked pretty good last time I tried it).

(Luu Tran declared a few years ago that he considered the XNews to be
mature, and has only issued tweaks since then to address specific
problems. There was one about a spoofing problem with binaries or
some-such, but I don't do binaries so it wasn't of much interest.)
 
On 11 Jul 2005, Jim Scott wrote
Why K-Meleon in preference to Ffox? Go on win me over :o)
Click to expand...

Various reasons -- all personal/set-up-specific.

KM isn't for everyone -- it's a bit geeky -- but it's very clean and
loads a lot faster than Ffox on my machine (an Athlon +2000 running
98SE). It uses macros rather than Ffox's language (?XML), which makes
it easy to tinker with a little bit (I get to express my inner geek).

It seems easier to switch versions with KM: one of the things that I
found awkward with Ffox was that I'd just get it set up the way I
wanted; a new version would come out; and I'd have to install all my
extensions again. Maybe Ffox has improved that, but I liked the KM
simplicity of keeping almost everything in the profiles
(user.js/prefs.js), and just copying those over to the updated version.

There's a small but enthusiastic community of developers who do various
versions, and since it can be run as a non-installed executable they're
easy to try; I like that. They're also very helpful with specific
problems: I had no idea how to do a one-click-open of a bunch of
pages, and was given a patient explanation of how to set up a macro to
do that.

One of the best things to me -- very much a personal thing -- is the
attitude of the developers and users when asked about features/lack of
features. In the Ffox forums (and prior to that -- a few years ago ---
in the Opera forums) I got quite browned off with the tiresome
boosterism: anyone who questioned or even acknowledged a perceived
defect was jumped on as insufficiently devoted to the cause and
probably a MS stooge. (Linux forums are even worse for that.)

I found the KM community's attitude towards relative merits of
programs a lot more grown-up: one of the standard views in there is
"my browser is not my religion", which I liked.
40tude Dialog for news. You can make it do anything you wish.
Xnews is good tho'.
Click to expand...

I've heard good things about 40tude, but have stuck with XNews on a
not-broken-don't-fix basis. When I last poked around for a replacement
client (in case XNews became way too outdated), I thought XanaNews
looked pretty good.
 
I use SpyBot, Adaware and Spyware blaster (as well as Avast ant-virus and
XP-SP2 firewall)
I feel that I am becoming paranoid.
I am on ISDN, but only connect when I need to.
I am aware that XP-SP2 only blocks incoming.

Assuming I have cleaned out all the Spyware and Trojans, would it not be
sufficient to now use a 2-way firewall like Outpost or ZA with the
anti-virus?
Click to expand...

Depends on your situation and willingness to learn. I've never had
a laptop and was never interested in file/printer sharing. I "harden"
my OS (close all internet ports and otherwise disable all unwanted
and unnecessary services), install all security patches, avoid
using IE and OE, and practice "safe hex".

Been on the internet all day long with DSL service for years. No
firewall. No realtime antivirus (or anything else) stealing my
machine's resources. No malware or spyware problems at all.

I do use a good av on-demand (KAV) to check my drive before I
back up. And I use Spybot and AdAware. I also use general
purpose methods and utils ... looking for unusual activity.
It's part of a weekly maintenance routine I do which includes
defrag and some registry and file cleanup.

Art

http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg
 
Harvey said:
Couldn't agree more -- it's very much down to on-line habits and the
user(s) profiles and procedures.

I have a one-person PC, on which I run a firewall (ZA) along with a
number of crud-cleaning programs (including a desktop short-cut to a
batch file that deletes my cookie, internet cache, and Windows/Temp
folder). I've never (honest) used IE except when absolutely necessary
-- which I'd guess is less than 1% of sites -- and I've never used a MS
e-mail client.

What I *don't* do -- gasp! -- is to run the AV in the background, in
real-time; given my habits, I've found that to be overkill.

Whenever I've done my regular maintenance -- about once a month -- I
update all the definitions and run AdAware, SpyBot and AVG, but I've
not caught a single dodgy file that way for -- literally -- years. (I
can date the last virus I had, as my brother was visiting from Canada
at the time: June, 1999 -- a macro in a .doc file which I knew was
being sent from a trusted source.)

The "you *must* run this regardless of your set-up or habits" brigade
mean well, but blanket comments never cover the details of every case.
Click to expand...

I operate very similar to your methods, DUN, W98SE, FF and TB, AntiVir on
demand. Main difference is I never run a firewall. Experts on MS hg would
say with no firewall- "big risk that nasties are happening quietly on your
hard drive, use your computer as a server, etc. "....
In 10 years on the internet, haven't had problems.

Maybe later, will run Kerio, just as another good practice, but not urgent.

Mike Sa
 
ms wrote that Harvey Van Sickle wrote:

-snip-
Click to expand...
I operate very similar to your methods, DUN, W98SE, FF and TB,
AntiVir on demand. Main difference is I never run a firewall.
Experts on MS hg would say with no firewall- "big risk that
nasties are happening quietly on your hard drive, use your
computer as a server, etc. ".... In 10 years on the internet,
haven't had problems.
Click to expand...
Maybe later, will run Kerio, just as another good practice, but
not urgent.
Click to expand...

Not if you're careful and on DUN. The firewall's necessary for me, as
I'm on broadband (cable modem) -- if you weren't on DUN, I'd say you
should definitely run one.

FWIW, what I like best about a firewall is blocking truly dumb and
unnecessary phone-home stuff. Notifications for access which I've
permanently denied have included a photo-editing program; Excel;
Intellipoint mouseware; and the MS solitaire game "Spider". (Why the
hell that last one wanted access I've no idea; but it wasn't getting
it!)
 
Not if you're careful and on DUN. The firewall's necessary for me, as
I'm on broadband (cable modem) -- if you weren't on DUN, I'd say you
should definitely run one.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised at how fast an "open" PC will often be compromised
nowdays once a connection is established. Sometimes all it takes is
a minute or two. The old wive's tales concerning wideband versus
dialup are just that. Old wive's tales.

Art

http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg
 
ms wrote that Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
Click to expand...
Be careful. I had a very bad experience with Kerio and I have a
similar setup to yours. I was unable to run many programs, the machine
would not shut down cleanly, ever, configuring the program was an
exercise in futility with it refusing to remember settings between
reboots, presumably because I was unable to shut down and reboot.
Not if you're careful and on DUN. The firewall's necessary for me, as
I'm on broadband (cable modem) -- if you weren't on DUN, I'd say you
should definitely run one.

FWIW, what I like best about a firewall is blocking truly dumb and
unnecessary phone-home stuff. Notifications for access which I've
permanently denied have included a photo-editing program; Excel;
Intellipoint mouseware; and the MS solitaire game "Spider". (Why the
hell that last one wanted access I've no idea; but it wasn't getting
it!)
Click to expand...

I have blocked several programs that exhibit such behaviour. M$ Media
Player was one along with a help executable. I'm not sure which one.
 
*ProteanThread* said:
I think what the OP is saying, he shouldn't have to use all of this,
but in today's society i guess we gotta.

on the other hand, if microsoft did things right the first time, we
wouldn't need ANY of this.
Click to expand...
I agree with you but in somewhat of a defense of Microsoft you can not
think if everthing and nt matter what company, person or organization
that would have created the dominent operating system there is no way it
would be perfect.
 
I agree with you but in somewhat of a defense of Microsoft you can not
think if everthing and nt matter what company, person or organization
that would have created the dominent operating system there is no way it
would be perfect.
Click to expand...

However, having open ports by default is insane. If users want
file/printer sharing, they should have to install NetBios ... not
have it active by default. Not to mention other services (which
result in other open ports) which should only be activated by
the user ... not by default.

Art

http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg
 
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