Norton Antivirus 2003 scans outgoing email for viruses. If properly immunized spyware can be all but eliminated. Those are the culprits that like to dial out or reach out and bring in friends.
Soem people use a Router plus Zone Alarm or some other firewall, maybe windows own built in firewall for ultra protection. Personally I have had no problems just using the Router only as Galen suggests, along with AV and Spyware protection of course.
I run McAfee virus-scan on my computers, each computer then wakes-up at various times of the night and scans the network.
Each computer boot-ups running Ad-Aware.
Each computer has Tasks scheduled. They each Re-Boot daily. They each: De-Frag, Reg-Clean, and Re-Sort once a week. Each task is done on a different night each week. The only thing they each do, every night is: Re-boot, Ad-Aware scan and McAfee virus scan.
Ad-Aware and McAfee each check for updates at will, and they update themselves.
My eldest was running a Host-server for a while. He is a self-taught linux guru. So we saw how often a site gets hacked. It was amazing to look at his log-files at the hundreds of attacks each day. Fortunately most attacks were attempting to run DOS commands on the system, since he ran linux nothing happens, but a few attempted Unix commands which could possibly be bad, so it kept him on his toes learning about security. All webmasters doing this become very good hackers themselves.
Much of the info I know about spyware and malware came from this forum and a couple of outside sources AFTER I read about it here.
The cool thing is I get to teach this stuff to my Computer Information System students. Last night for the first 40 minutes of class we just talked about spyware and malware and what to do to protect your computers.
This stuff was brand new to almost all of my students, and more than one said, "My year-old computer has started running reaaaaallly slowly lately" and I was able to tell them exactly why.
More universities should incorporate this information in their courses.
Download spybot 1.3 AND Ad Aware. Use Grisoft's AVP antivirus. It is free and it seems to be more effective than Norton or McAfee. I am also using WinPatrol, which is "cute" but effective.
The problem with Win98 hooked up directly to a broadband network is that without a firewall you might as well put out the welcome mat unless you disable client for microsoft windows and file and print sharing from TCPIP protocol. If you didn't understand what I just wrote, it suffices to say that you need to put something between your computer and the internet.
There are some great free personal use firewalls, such as Zone Alarm and Sygate (which is quickly becoming my personal favorite). If you are running windows 2000 or XP do not leave your machine logged in with administrative privileges. Use restricted user only. Unplug your Windows 95, 98, & ME from broadband unless you have a router between you and the internet or a good firewall.
I recommend firefox and mozilla's thunderbird. I only use IE when i must.
OpenOffice is a great alternative to MS Office and it's free.
I have been running the following: Spybot Search & Destroy; Avast! Antivirus; No Adware; Grisoft AVG;
I've installed XP's SP2.
AND NOW I'M INFECTED WITH A TROJAN VIRUS!!! What the hell is going on here? I only have used three websites: gsc, drudgereport and yahoo for my mail; What gives?
I ran No Adware and it found 119 infections which it removed. Right after that my virus alarm went off and is telling me I have more that it cannot remove.
And that virus certainly came from an incoming email OR a file you downloaded from a site. Thats the most common ways people get viruses.
Does you AV software scan incoming mail for viruses before it reaches you like online email services do?
And does your AV software scan files as you download them?
Concerning Spyware (a whole different issue than viruses), the best approach is a proactive one to immunize, block and protect you from the thousands of worst offender sites out there in the first place. They are blocked in your Restricted sites Zones. But you have to update the blocking of the new ones occasionally.
My Spybot, Ad Aware, and anything else I use are all like the Maytag Repairman now. I hardly ever have to even run them anymore regardles of where I go. And when I do they never find anything.
1. Don't hook up your computer directly to a DSL or cable modem. It takes under 2 minutes for a computer to get infected and hooking up to a modem is like leaving the backdoor open. Get a router. In the meantime turn off Netbios over tcpip.
2. Don't login to your computer with full rights and leave it that way. If you can install programs and do things with files, so can anything else. Create an "internet" username. Sounds like a hassle, but it's the only way I know of to keep the rascals off your hard drive. This will do it regardless of whatever else you do because you are restricted as to where you can write files.
3. Use a firewall. Sygate is good Zonealarm is good.
Thanks WW, John and Tzaia. Yes, every piece of email gets scanned. Yes, I keep the immunize function on. I was able to get it all cleaned up and I am virus free. Thanks for the info on the firewarll, Tzaia.
Sorry it took me so long to respond. Been running this week.
Jardi -- glad you are up and running and happy b-day, by the by... :D-->
Since I began my quest to change careers in 99/00, I have tried *most*, but not all, security stuff out there.
I have found, that for the most part, free stuff works better and generally has a smaller memory "footprint" and plays better with other children(software :D-->)
I presently run, on Win2k, AdAwareSE, Spybot Search and Destroy, SpywareBlaster, AVG anti-virus, a-squared Malware scanner and Sygate's Personal Firewall.
Zone Alarm, at least the free version, used to work well but has had problems making nice and I gave it up about a year ago or so.
Norton and MacAfee have been problematic in a number of areas AND they always want MORE money...nuff said there.
I also use Mozilla, Firefox and Opera browsers -- I never use IE for anything 'cept Windoze updates. I have used mozilla mail and thunderbird; both good AND FREE...I still use Eudora also and just like the feel of it, also has a free version... ;)-->
Avoiding MikroKrap when possible is a qwik and eazzzyy way to avoid many, but not all, wares, be it spy, ad or mal. as always, YMMV. and all these work fine with XP, as well.
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Galen
I dont mean to be understood as saying that a router firewall takes care of everything that your computer should be doing.
:-)
Rather that this one job, is best done by the router.
To give the computer better opportunity to focus soley on everything else.
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igotout
Norton Antivirus 2003 scans outgoing email for viruses. If properly immunized spyware can be all but eliminated. Those are the culprits that like to dial out or reach out and bring in friends.
Soem people use a Router plus Zone Alarm or some other firewall, maybe windows own built in firewall for ultra protection. Personally I have had no problems just using the Router only as Galen suggests, along with AV and Spyware protection of course.
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Galen
I run McAfee virus-scan on my computers, each computer then wakes-up at various times of the night and scans the network.
Each computer boot-ups running Ad-Aware.
Each computer has Tasks scheduled. They each Re-Boot daily. They each: De-Frag, Reg-Clean, and Re-Sort once a week. Each task is done on a different night each week. The only thing they each do, every night is: Re-boot, Ad-Aware scan and McAfee virus scan.
Ad-Aware and McAfee each check for updates at will, and they update themselves.
My eldest was running a Host-server for a while. He is a self-taught linux guru. So we saw how often a site gets hacked. It was amazing to look at his log-files at the hundreds of attacks each day. Fortunately most attacks were attempting to run DOS commands on the system, since he ran linux nothing happens, but a few attempted Unix commands which could possibly be bad, so it kept him on his toes learning about security. All webmasters doing this become very good hackers themselves.
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Steve!
Much of the info I know about spyware and malware came from this forum and a couple of outside sources AFTER I read about it here.
The cool thing is I get to teach this stuff to my Computer Information System students. Last night for the first 40 minutes of class we just talked about spyware and malware and what to do to protect your computers.
This stuff was brand new to almost all of my students, and more than one said, "My year-old computer has started running reaaaaallly slowly lately" and I was able to tell them exactly why.
More universities should incorporate this information in their courses.
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Tzaia
Friends,
Download spybot 1.3 AND Ad Aware. Use Grisoft's AVP antivirus. It is free and it seems to be more effective than Norton or McAfee. I am also using WinPatrol, which is "cute" but effective.
The problem with Win98 hooked up directly to a broadband network is that without a firewall you might as well put out the welcome mat unless you disable client for microsoft windows and file and print sharing from TCPIP protocol. If you didn't understand what I just wrote, it suffices to say that you need to put something between your computer and the internet.
There are some great free personal use firewalls, such as Zone Alarm and Sygate (which is quickly becoming my personal favorite). If you are running windows 2000 or XP do not leave your machine logged in with administrative privileges. Use restricted user only. Unplug your Windows 95, 98, & ME from broadband unless you have a router between you and the internet or a good firewall.
I recommend firefox and mozilla's thunderbird. I only use IE when i must.
OpenOffice is a great alternative to MS Office and it's free.
Tzaia (Tech Zone: Amy's Internet Answers)
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
--Adolf Hitler
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jardinero
O.K. now what?????????????
I have been running the following: Spybot Search & Destroy; Avast! Antivirus; No Adware; Grisoft AVG;
I've installed XP's SP2.
AND NOW I'M INFECTED WITH A TROJAN VIRUS!!! What the hell is going on here? I only have used three websites: gsc, drudgereport and yahoo for my mail; What gives?
I ran No Adware and it found 119 infections which it removed. Right after that my virus alarm went off and is telling me I have more that it cannot remove.
Any idea what is going on?
J.
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WordWolf
Is your AVG updated to the latest update?
(Every few days, there's an update.)
You should be able to clean out every virus by using the online
antivirus scan one time at
http://www.trendmicro.com
Which can take an hour.
After that, I'd do it once a season to get anything that made it thru
your antivirus.
From what I've heard, stubborn infections can be stamped out by
running antivirus programs and so on while your pc is in safe mode.
(If a program is running, it can't delete the program-which is why
safe mode, with everything not running, works here.
Is your Spybot's "immunization" function on? I hope so.
If you want to increase your security, AdAware is free and catches
a lot of stuff.
Further, you can download another antivirus for use when online or offline.
AntiVir is more effective than AVG, if less user-friendly.
If you ran it fully while running AVG fully, you'd have system glitches.
So, here's what you do....
You download AntiVir, then carefully read the options.
Where it has a box checked off for installing the antivirus GUARD/SHIELD,
UNcheck that box.
Now, you have a program that won't interfere with AVG,
but will serve as an active scanner when you switch it on.
Make sure ALL your stuff is up-to-date,
including your Windows-there's been updates since SP2.
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igotout
And that virus certainly came from an incoming email OR a file you downloaded from a site. Thats the most common ways people get viruses.
Does you AV software scan incoming mail for viruses before it reaches you like online email services do?
And does your AV software scan files as you download them?
Concerning Spyware (a whole different issue than viruses), the best approach is a proactive one to immunize, block and protect you from the thousands of worst offender sites out there in the first place. They are blocked in your Restricted sites Zones. But you have to update the blocking of the new ones occasionally.
My Spybot, Ad Aware, and anything else I use are all like the Maytag Repairman now. I hardly ever have to even run them anymore regardles of where I go. And when I do they never find anything.
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Tzaia
There are a couple of things not said.
1. Don't hook up your computer directly to a DSL or cable modem. It takes under 2 minutes for a computer to get infected and hooking up to a modem is like leaving the backdoor open. Get a router. In the meantime turn off Netbios over tcpip.
2. Don't login to your computer with full rights and leave it that way. If you can install programs and do things with files, so can anything else. Create an "internet" username. Sounds like a hassle, but it's the only way I know of to keep the rascals off your hard drive. This will do it regardless of whatever else you do because you are restricted as to where you can write files.
3. Use a firewall. Sygate is good Zonealarm is good.
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jardinero
Hi guys:
Thanks WW, John and Tzaia. Yes, every piece of email gets scanned. Yes, I keep the immunize function on. I was able to get it all cleaned up and I am virus free. Thanks for the info on the firewarll, Tzaia.
Sorry it took me so long to respond. Been running this week.
J.
J.
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alfakat
Jardi -- glad you are up and running and happy b-day, by the by...
:D--> 
Since I began my quest to change careers in 99/00, I have tried *most*, but not all, security stuff out there.
I have found, that for the most part, free stuff works better and generally has a smaller memory "footprint" and plays better with other children(software
:D-->)
I presently run, on Win2k, AdAwareSE, Spybot Search and Destroy, SpywareBlaster, AVG anti-virus, a-squared Malware scanner and Sygate's Personal Firewall.
Zone Alarm, at least the free version, used to work well but has had problems making nice and I gave it up about a year ago or so.
Norton and MacAfee have been problematic in a number of areas AND they always want MORE money...nuff said there.
I also use Mozilla, Firefox and Opera browsers -- I never use IE for anything 'cept Windoze updates. I have used mozilla mail and thunderbird; both good AND FREE...I still use Eudora also and just like the feel of it, also has a free version...
;)-->
Avoiding MikroKrap when possible is a qwik and eazzzyy way to avoid many, but not all, wares, be it spy, ad or mal. as always, YMMV. and all these work fine with XP, as well.
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