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ot: antivirus prog
done to death, i know. however norton sub coming up and i’m sick of nortons screwing up my email…
recommendations? (antivirus/antispam)
leslie
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12 Replies
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I’m a web developer. I’ve run my PC for three years without anti virus and never had a problem. Took me a while to figure it out.. but here is the recipe..
1) Have a hardware firewall setup (router integration OK)
2) NEVER use Outlook, Outlook Express or Internet Explorer under any circumstances
3) Use GMail for your email (anti virus built-in and essentially SPAM PROOF)
4) Use Firefox for your internet browsing (and disable all cookies except ones you manually authorize)
5) Download and install Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft AdAware and run them weekly.There are four computers in my house set up this way (laptops for my wife and kids included) and we haven’t had a virus in YEARS.
Best of luck
mj
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I’ve been using AVG on recent computer setups here. It’s free for personal use and seems to work well.
Edward Troxel
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This machine is actually similar. I do not have any anti-virus on it (I DO have anti-virus installed on my wife’s machine and both of my parent’s machines). I also do not use Outlook or Outlook Express (but my parents do – my wife doesn’t). However, we all DO use Internet Explorer. I just try to make sure I don’t go to places I don’t know about. Plus, I do periodically run an online virus checker (like Symantec or Housecall/Trend Micro).
Edward Troxel
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Funny you said that.. both of my folks (they both have computers now because they got addicted!) used to run Internet Explorer, too. and my Dad was using Outlook. Of course I’m the [reluctant] family tech guru so every time they got a virus or work I had to go up to their house to fix it (120 mi away). When I finally got them both on GMail and off Internet Explorer (which was about a year ago) they haven’t had a single problem since. The other thing is, their computers are still performing well and that’s also due to the lack of worms and crap on their hard drives now.
In any event, I look at it this way.. 95% of viruses and worms are written to exploit Outlook and Internet Explorer security holes. Why even bother with them? Firefox is much faster and not nearly as vulnerable – not to mention it doesn;t hang or crash .. ever. 🙂 I highly recommend getting everyone you know off IE. When you install Firefox it will automatically import all your IE settings and favorites too.
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[anotheruser] “Of course I’m the [reluctant] family tech guru so every time they got a virus or work I had to go up to their house to fix it (120 mi away).”
I fully understand what you’re saying (same is true for me) – but mine live across the road. Makes it much easier to pop over to fix their problems. Also makes it much easier to leave my son with his grand parents! 🙂
Edward Troxel
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I envy you! We’ve got a 9 and 10 year old and no family close by to help us out! ACK! 😉
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I’ve been VERY pleased with AVG. The only complaint I can make is that when it is running a scheduled scan, it pretty much takes over the computer — so I schedule while I’m eating lunch.
Rick
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[anotheruser] “4) Use Firefox for your internet browsing (and disable all cookies except ones you manually authorize)”
I agree with every point of your post, and half of this point. Using Firefox is far safer than using IE, and you should never use IE unless you have to. IE was designed specifically by Microsoft to enable the distribution of virii.
I spend quite a while every week using the browser, and manually acknowledge each and every cookie before they are allowed to be set would be cumbersome, and it is also overkill. Note that it is not possible to spread virii or spy-ware using cookies. A cookie is simply a text string, and unless there is a bug in the browser it is harmless.
What cookies can be used for it to trace your browsing habits, which is a privacy concern. Spy-ware companies and ad guys use this, even on regular websites, to try to find out where you go and what you do so that they can target ads to you specifically. In order for them to be able to do this however, the cookie must be set for a different website than the one you are browsing. For example, if you are browsing creativecow, and their ad-guys want to enable The Nasty Ad Company (www.thenastyadcompany.com) to see that you are browsing creativecow, the ad guys at creativecow would set a cookie (or allow The Nasty Ad company’s ads) to set a cookie with the address of thenastyadcompany.com, so would New York Times, and the Nasty Ad Company will then be able to see that you browse both creativecow and NYT. They can then target you as a NYT and creativecow user.
This can easily be avoided, but is sadly not enabled in Firefox by default.
Go to Options->Privacy, Check “Allow sites to set cookie” and also check, “for the originating site only”.
If you do this, cookies are guaranteed to be completely harmless, and there is absolutely no way they can be used for a nefarious purpose.
Doing it like this you are 100% safe, and you do not have to manualy approve every single cookie.
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Terje A. Bergesen -
From a dummy –
Terry Esslinger
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