Internet Security and Saving

pjnicho

Thanks for security advice. Any advice on how to stop a succession of dodgey e-mails that are coming my way? They all have attachments, of course, and all I'm doing is deleting them.

System

Hey pjnicho,

Hotmail has pretty effective filters, think Outlook and Yahoo have something similar, whereby you can simply block specific senders or block anyone you don't know. There's probably a better answer, but that should do it until you find it. At least you aren't opening the damn things - that could be fatal.

Mike

gogs_2

Hi all - this is my first money saving chat room contribution message

Internet security all v. interesting

I have Norton Systemworks and Internet Security which i believed (wrongly?) would give all the security I need. Is this not the case?

Is Norton worth the money if you are prepared to subscribe to updates?

I appreciate that the programmes being recommended by debeast are free. Do you think that they are as good or better than Norton in what they do or just better because they are free ???

Can they set to update automatically or do have to do it yourself

Thanks

gogs

theloft

For DebEast

Have you checked your message box ? Sent you one but have not had a reply, just wanted some help on stuff you seem to be in touch with !!

Icarus

Hi all
The best Internet security is to have a firewall running on a dedicated pc & network this to all pcs in the house. I use freesco https://www.freesco.org which also controls internet access

I use Tiny Personal Firewall http://www.tinysoftware.com/home/tiny2?la=EN this is nolonger free.

I also use AVG https://www.grisoft.com & f-prot for DOS http://www.f-prot.com/download/download_fpdos.html which is usefull for booting to DOS & doing a thorough scan or dealing with viruses.
Ofcourse any virus scanner is only as good as the latest update, you MUST download virus definition updates REGULARLY.

I use Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoft.nu/ to check for spyware.

Having setup which ever firewall you use it is a good idea to check that "it is doing what it says on the tin" the best site for this is Steve Gibsons site https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 you'd be surprised at some of the results.
Steve also has a wealth of security related stuff on his site , from articles detailing a denyal of service attack on his site by a couple of 13 yearolds!! http://www.grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm to revealing the extent of security holes in certain operating systems. Worth checking out his site https://www.grc.com

As mentioned by someone else Opera & Mozilla are browsers that allow you to "turn off popups" & are free.

To minimize the chances of getting a virus it is agood idea to sign up with an ISP which has an e-mail virus scanner setup on their server. Or get your self a domain & an e-mail account at that domain with some one like easily.co.uk Their scanner cought & deleted 131 infected e-mails in 20 days !!

Appoligies if some of this has already been mentioned on this thread.

Icarus

peter_the_piper

Gogs,
Nortons are very good and have picked up all that have so far been thrown at me. Yes they can be set up to auto update, in internet security go to Options, Internet security.
You should see a screen which(amongst others) has a check box saying enable auto live update. Make sure this is checked and upates will come when you are online. You will be amazed at how many updates come through.

System

Gogs,

As a non-expert (who's read a lot about internet security, for my own peace of mind), I'd say 'the best' AV product is probably ESET's nod32 (quote from https://www.nod32.com site):

NOD32 earns another, 26th Virus Bulletin 100% Award!
03/30/2004
Since May 1998, close to six years (!), the NOD32 Antivirus System has been the only product in the world that has not missed a single “In the Wild” virus in the rigorous testing conducted by the antivirus industry ‘bible', the Virus Bulletin ( https://www.virusbulletin.com ).

Norton fares well in these tests, Grisoft AVG not quite so well (last time I looked). Grisoft is popular because it's free and it is good. Loads of people seem to have no AV and still have no problems (but it's just a matter of time...)

You've probably never heard of nod32 'cos they don't seem to advertise and I've never seen them reviewed in a pc mag (maybe 'cos they don't advertise in them?)

I'd rather pay for Norton and the yearly update subs, but it's all down to choice - I've run AVG and was quite happy with it. Guess it's it a bit like car insurance - if you've got an old banger there's no point in paying full comp, but if you're doing rocket science on your p.c.... what does protection cost vs. how much will you lose if...

A recent 'test' (hmmm) by one of the main UK p.c. mags rated Norton's firewall almost as good as ZoneLabs Pro version - you can't get much better! If you got Norton's AV and firewall bundled together then you got a good price.

I wouldn't lose any sleep about the quality of what you've bought. If you're concerned about adware/ spyware crap, try the free Adaware or, maybe better still, the free Spybot S&D.

Incidenatally, there are other products out there which are, by all accounts, excellent, but which never get a mention in the p.c. mags (but again, they never advertise).

Mike

System

From what I can make out, NOD32 costs £22 for one year, £33 for two or £44 for 3 (annual subs after that).

Don’t know how easy it is for newbies (like me) to use, but it looks a bargain? Check out https://www.nod32.com

Found a few reviews:
In its November 2003 Antivirus Test Comparison, PC Chip Croatia rated NOD32 as the #1 performer in both speed and detection . . . ahead of antivirus industry heavyweights Norton, McAfee, TrendMicro, Kaspersky, AVG, eTrust, H+BEDV, Panda, and Sophos.
"Since the beginning NOD32 was rudely neglected in favor of "big names" - the famous web site Cnet went so far as to bury NOD32 as a third class program with doubtful quality - but they could not have gone further from the truth, because NOD32 is the winner of many awards and certificates from the most respected independent labs and groups in the antivirus industry." wrote the PC Chip Editor in his review.

In the September-October issue of the computer magazine MikroDatorn, NOD32 was chosen the fastest antivirus program out of ten products tested.

“The Best Antivirus of 2002” Award (by Australian PC User magazine)!

Some great products (all Trojan-hunters, not free but very effective) you might not have heard of: TDS-3; Trojan Hunter, BoClean, Tauscan – http://www.anti-trojan-software-reviews.com/ (for the really worried)

debeast

Wow this post has really taken off.

I've answered all the messages in my inbox, sorry i didn't notice i had new ones :P

A few salient points in answer to the majority of posts:

XP firewall- The reason i said it was no good is because although it will stop connections coming in. It doesn't stop them going out. It also doesn't hide your ports from those nasty people out there. Sygate is very good at hiding you. But i find kerio easier to use.

Zonealarm - Can't believe i got an official answer and thanks for that corey. But sorry i'd rather not take the risk. There IS a packet change though and untill im 100% sure what it is i'll avoid it.

E-mails - If you have the four proggies i mentioned at the start or any of the vast majority of the other programs also mentioned by some very wise people. Then you can be pretty sure that any virus you get from emails will be nullified immediatly. I think i'll do a new post on pure e-mail security as that subject is nealy as big as this one

hope this helps

Debeastie

Psych_2

I just thought i'd add my comments to the mix.

first of all, as firewalls go, there's nothing wrong with Zone Alarm, part formt he fact that it used to lock up my computer, as well as some friends'. I've gone through th emotions of Tiny, Kerio (both were excellent, although seem to hav ebloated along with everyone else), and have settled upon Agnitum Outpost Pro https://www.agnitum.com th epower of a decent rules based firwall, with anice interface as well as the options to add plugins (doesn't force them on you)

As for A/V programs, i used to use mcafee.com ages ago, but gave up on it for some reason. i've been using nod32 form https://www.eset.com for a year or two now. i rate it tremendously. As has been said before, it's the A/V program to have won the Virus Bulletin Award the most.
It also helped that i rather nicely was able to obtain a 30% discount a while after the offer ended. 3 years for about £30 is very nice. it also doens't overpower you liek some of thelarger more well known ones such as norton, mcafee.

For trojans/sypware/adware, spybot is my staple. i sue ad-aware on occoasion, and have tds3 for proper trojan removal lying around somewhere. it is definately the best trojan remover around. resource intensive, but is able to safely detect and remove some that nod32 couldn't remove.
i also have spywareguard and spywareblaster installed from https://www.wilderssecurity.com

for popup blocking, when i use IE, i've got the google toolbar installed. works ok for the most part.
for proper browsing though, i use MYIE2 https://www.myie2.com its a tab based interface for IE, and comes with a built in popup blocker, url aliases, group support, and much much more including the ability to use the gecko rendered insted of IE. I highly recommend it to anyone using IE. avantbrowser isn't bad either.

These ae all free apart from nod32, tds3, and outpost pro. with outpost, there is a free version avialable, and the others do have 30day trials.