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As soon as I can, I'm uninstalling ZA and will install Comodo instead.

It's really easy:

1. Download Comodo
2. Unplug network cable
3. Uninstall ZoneAlarm
4. Reboot
5. Install Comodo
6. Connect network cable

Will take you all of five minutes.

Comodo Internet Security. Their firewall is top notch. Their AV is as good as the others. I haven't really put it to the test, other than I know my computer has been clean for years.

Yes, and it is damned good and low resource too. I would highly recommend Comodo Firewall which is free and you can either get it alone, on as part of their also free Comodo Internet Security (same link). I have been using Comodo for quite awhile, as well as giving it to customers and family, and it really is top notch. It supports stealthing your ports, it supports whitelisting of local LANs if you desire, and most importantly while it gives you the tools to set up a seriously deep policy, you can just leave it at the defaults and it works great as well. And it works on everything from XP32- windows 7 x64.

So give it a try, they have a whole line of killer free tools including Comodo Time Machine and a nice webkit based browser called Comodo Dragon. They even have free SSL certs for website owners. A great company with some great tools that cost $0, oh and NO nagware, NO email address required, NO limited updates, and their Internet Security has an excellent sandbox built in that by default puts all unknowns in the sandbox.

Yes, and it is damned good and low resource too. I would highly recommend Comodo Firewall which is free and you can either get it alone, on as part of their also free Comodo Internet Security (same link). I have been using Comodo for quite awhile, as well as giving it to customers and family, and it really is top notch. It supports stealthing your ports, it supports whitelisting of local LANs if you desire, and most importantly while it gives you the tools to set up a seriously deep policy, you can just leave it at the defaults and it works great as well. And it works on everything from XP32- windows 7 x64.

So give it a try, they have a whole line of killer free tools including Comodo Time Machine and a nice webkit based browser called Comodo Dragon. They even have free SSL certs for website owners. A great company with some great tools that cost $0, oh and NO nagware, NO email address required, NO limited updates, and their Internet Security has an excellent sandbox built in that by default puts all unknowns in the sandbox.

Yes, and it is damned good and low resource too. I would highly recommend Comodo Firewall which is free and you can either get it alone, on as part of their also free Comodo Internet Security (same link). I have been using Comodo for quite awhile, as well as giving it to customers and family, and it really is top notch. It supports stealthing your ports, it supports whitelisting of local LANs if you desire, and most importantly while it gives you the tools to set up a seriously deep policy, you can just leave it at the defaults and it works great as well. And it works on everything from XP32- windows 7 x64.

So give it a try, they have a whole line of killer free tools including Comodo Time Machine and a nice webkit based browser called Comodo Dragon. They even have free SSL certs for website owners. A great company with some great tools that cost $0, oh and NO nagware, NO email address required, NO limited updates, and their Internet Security has an excellent sandbox built in that by default puts all unknowns in the sandbox.

Yes, and it is damned good and low resource too. I would highly recommend Comodo Firewall which is free and you can either get it alone, on as part of their also free Comodo Internet Security (same link). I have been using Comodo for quite awhile, as well as giving it to customers and family, and it really is top notch. It supports stealthing your ports, it supports whitelisting of local LANs if you desire, and most importantly while it gives you the tools to set up a seriously deep policy, you can just leave it at the defaults and it works great as well. And it works on everything from XP32- windows 7 x64.

So give it a try, they have a whole line of killer free tools including Comodo Time Machine and a nice webkit based browser called Comodo Dragon. They even have free SSL certs for website owners. A great company with some great tools that cost $0, oh and NO nagware, NO email address required, NO limited updates, and their Internet Security has an excellent sandbox built in that by default puts all unknowns in the sandbox.

Hello,

Below is a list of free application software firewalls I put together a while ago. Not sure if they are all current, and I am probably missing quite a few, but it is a starting point.

Firewalls
Active Network - Active Wall Free Edition
Agnitum - Outpost Firewall Free
AS3 Soft4U - AS3 Personal Firewall
Ashampoo - Ashampoo Firewall Free
Comodo Group - Comodo Firewall (now a part of Comodo Internet Security)
FilSecLab - Filseclab Personal Firewall Professional Edition
Group 4 Business Intelligence - IDNWebShield (main web site down when last checked)
NetVeda - NetVeda SafetyNet
PC Tools - PC Tools Firewall Plus Free Edition
PrivacyWare - Privatefirewall
SecurePoint - Securepoint Personal Firewall & VPN Client - (discontinued?)
SoftPerfect - SoftPerfect Personal Firewall
Tall Emu - Online Armor Free - (acquired by EmsiSoft?)
WIPFW Project - WIPFW - (port of BSD IPFW)

Firewall Managers
GT Delphi Components - Windows Firewall Ports & Applications Manager (WFWPAM)
Sheesley, Eric - XPFiremon

Hopefully, this is of help.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

Below is a list of free application software firewalls I put together a while ago. Not sure if they are all current, and I am probably missing quite a few, but it is a starting point.

Firewalls
Active Network - Active Wall Free Edition
Agnitum - Outpost Firewall Free
AS3 Soft4U - AS3 Personal Firewall
Ashampoo - Ashampoo Firewall Free
Comodo Group - Comodo Firewall (now a part of Comodo Internet Security)
FilSecLab - Filseclab Personal Firewall Professional Edition
Group 4 Business Intelligence - IDNWebShield (main web site down when last checked)
NetVeda - NetVeda SafetyNet
PC Tools - PC Tools Firewall Plus Free Edition
PrivacyWare - Privatefirewall
SecurePoint - Securepoint Personal Firewall & VPN Client - (discontinued?)
SoftPerfect - SoftPerfect Personal Firewall
Tall Emu - Online Armor Free - (acquired by EmsiSoft?)
WIPFW Project - WIPFW - (port of BSD IPFW)

Firewall Managers
GT Delphi Components - Windows Firewall Ports & Applications Manager (WFWPAM)
Sheesley, Eric - XPFiremon

Hopefully, this is of help.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Time to switch to Comodo Internet Security then.

The summary is spot on. I haven't been a Windows user for a number of years, but a friend asked me to fix her malware problem and I reinstalled her Windows XP box. For the firewall, I remembered ZoneAlarm from a few years ago and installed it. After the first reboot, some stupid popup appeared, prompting me to "like" the software on Facebook. I'm like WTF? But still gave them the benefit of the doubt. Next reboot it comes up with the totally bogus popup that I may get infected with Zeus. I had to reread it twice to find out it really was an advertisement.

I downloaded Comodo, unplugged the network, uninstalled ZoneAlarm, installed Comodo and plugged back into the inter webs. Never looked back.

I probably will not buy any Check Point software for my business either.

Want to be able to fix it once and be done? And not cost you a penny? Allow your old pal Hairyfeet tell you how brother. Just install Comodo AV and follow it up with Comodo Time Machine.

Comodo AV has a built in sandbox and its default action is to sandbox everything you don't explicitly tell it not to, that way it shuts down even zero days that it doesn't have a signature to (but I've found its heuristics catches those anyway, but it never hurts to have extra protection) and you follow that up with Comodo Time Machine in case the clueless user keeps going "clicky clicky" in spite of the AV trying to stop them, or in some other way borks the PC. It'll even let you restore a non booting PC back to an earlier time via the F11 key on boot.

Put those two together brother and watch your headaches diminish. My GF lives 2 hours away and when she forgot to log off her PC and her niece screwed the PC to non boot status it took me a grand total of 15 minutes via phone to have her back good as new. Both are 100% free, no nagging, no emails, nothing. Can't beat easy AND free!

Want to be able to fix it once and be done? And not cost you a penny? Allow your old pal Hairyfeet tell you how brother. Just install Comodo AV and follow it up with Comodo Time Machine.

Comodo AV has a built in sandbox and its default action is to sandbox everything you don't explicitly tell it not to, that way it shuts down even zero days that it doesn't have a signature to (but I've found its heuristics catches those anyway, but it never hurts to have extra protection) and you follow that up with Comodo Time Machine in case the clueless user keeps going "clicky clicky" in spite of the AV trying to stop them, or in some other way borks the PC. It'll even let you restore a non booting PC back to an earlier time via the F11 key on boot.

Put those two together brother and watch your headaches diminish. My GF lives 2 hours away and when she forgot to log off her PC and her niece screwed the PC to non boot status it took me a grand total of 15 minutes via phone to have her back good as new. Both are 100% free, no nagging, no emails, nothing. Can't beat easy AND free!

If you are really worried about holes in your apps perhaps you should be running Comodo Internet Security or Comodo AV (same link) which by default sandboxes ALL apps you run unless you tell it otherwise. I've found a good 9 out of 10 apps run just fine in a sandbox, and Comodo makes it easy to sandbox any app and by default will sandbox new apps and new installs to protect your PC. Oh and it is 100% free too, with no nag emails or need to register.

Since giving my customers and family Comodo I've found the amount of crapware and malware I have to deal with has gone WAY down, since its default settings seems to help protect even the most clueless user. It also uses a hell of a lot less resources than the other free AV/Firewalls (it is currently using a grand total of 22Mb RAM and 0% CPU on Windows 7 HP X64, and I have similar numbers in XP SP3) so to me it is a no brainer. Better safe than sorry is my motto and if an app runs fine in a sandbox, why should I allow it access to the underlying OS?

There is already something similar, and free to boot. It is called Time Machine by Comodo and is what I give my more clueless customers. Just add a weekly Windows 7 image backup to an external HDD and all is cookies and cream, and it really makes my job easier. My GF lives 2 and a half hours away (had to move closer to her dad after his heart attack) and fixing her PC last time she had a serious fuck up took less than 10 minutes by phone with Time Machine. Really sweet.

Actually at least from experience I'd say Comodo gets it. I have relatives that can end up with more viruses than a Bangkok whore and Comodo keeps them squeaky clean, and cost nothing to boot. I like how Comodo has a built in sandbox and unless you tell it to otherwise will automatically tell you if an installer tries to run and sandbox it. And with the full firewall+AV I'm only using about 28Mb, so it isn't a piggy like a lot of them

And when combined with Comodo Time Machine which is also free I don't have to worry about my GF or family borking their PC beyond repair. It takes snapshots automatically and it took me less than 15 minutes to walk my GF by phone into restoring from snapshot when she'd somehow corrupted Win32.dll during a power loss. Really handy.

As for TFA I doubt it would matter which OS the machine was running, since this is a targeted attack on a very specific kind of system. If the malware writer is gonna go to the trouble to target such a niche system then they could just a easily target whichever OS it was running. Sadly no matter what the OS it always comes down to PEBKAC, and if they are crazy enough to run untrustworthy flash sticks on their highly important system I think they got bigger problems than malware. It takes..what? 3 minutes to boot a Linux live CD and wipe or scan a small flash drive?

Actually at least from experience I'd say Comodo gets it. I have relatives that can end up with more viruses than a Bangkok whore and Comodo keeps them squeaky clean, and cost nothing to boot. I like how Comodo has a built in sandbox and unless you tell it to otherwise will automatically tell you if an installer tries to run and sandbox it. And with the full firewall+AV I'm only using about 28Mb, so it isn't a piggy like a lot of them

And when combined with Comodo Time Machine which is also free I don't have to worry about my GF or family borking their PC beyond repair. It takes snapshots automatically and it took me less than 15 minutes to walk my GF by phone into restoring from snapshot when she'd somehow corrupted Win32.dll during a power loss. Really handy.

As for TFA I doubt it would matter which OS the machine was running, since this is a targeted attack on a very specific kind of system. If the malware writer is gonna go to the trouble to target such a niche system then they could just a easily target whichever OS it was running. Sadly no matter what the OS it always comes down to PEBKAC, and if they are crazy enough to run untrustworthy flash sticks on their highly important system I think they got bigger problems than malware. It takes..what? 3 minutes to boot a Linux live CD and wipe or scan a small flash drive?

Allow your old PC repair pal Hairyfeet to help you out there bud. What you want is a combination approach, using Comodo AV and Comodo Time Machine. Comodo AV, with full firewall, only uses around 19Mb of RAM and less than 1% CPU when not running a scheduled scan, and Comodo Time Machine allows you to "go back" and remove any malware she is clueless enough to ignore the warnings and install anyway. I have customers and relatives that can fill a PC with more viruses than a Bangkok Whore, and Comodo has kept them squeaky clean.

One word of warning though: Comodo Time machine will NOT work on a dual boot that includes Windows 7 in any location but the C: drive, due to the fact that Win7 changes everything to C: even if you install it in another location like D:. It won't screw anything up if you try it, it just won't work. But for a single boot, a dual boot with a non Win7 OS, or a dual boot with Win7 on the C: drive, Comodo AV + time machine is a life saver! Believe me, I know where you are coming from, my GF lives 126 miles away and having to repair her PC when she screwed it up was a pain. Thanks to Comodo time machine when she screws something up bad I can walk her through having her OS back to normal in under 15 minutes. And Comodo AV keeps the bugs away, as I had her bring it down just a couple of weeks ago to give it a checkup and all was good.

Both are 100% free, work on X86 and X64, and Comodo AV even has a sandbox built in that will automatically run installers and new apps in the sandbox if you desire, and you can have it run any app at any time sandboxed. You can even tell it to run her FF sandboxed and she'll never know the difference. Trust me, Hairyfeet is good, Hairyfeet is wise ;-)

Allow your old PC repair pal Hairyfeet to help you out there bud. What you want is a combination approach, using Comodo AV and Comodo Time Machine. Comodo AV, with full firewall, only uses around 19Mb of RAM and less than 1% CPU when not running a scheduled scan, and Comodo Time Machine allows you to "go back" and remove any malware she is clueless enough to ignore the warnings and install anyway. I have customers and relatives that can fill a PC with more viruses than a Bangkok Whore, and Comodo has kept them squeaky clean.

One word of warning though: Comodo Time machine will NOT work on a dual boot that includes Windows 7 in any location but the C: drive, due to the fact that Win7 changes everything to C: even if you install it in another location like D:. It won't screw anything up if you try it, it just won't work. But for a single boot, a dual boot with a non Win7 OS, or a dual boot with Win7 on the C: drive, Comodo AV + time machine is a life saver! Believe me, I know where you are coming from, my GF lives 126 miles away and having to repair her PC when she screwed it up was a pain. Thanks to Comodo time machine when she screws something up bad I can walk her through having her OS back to normal in under 15 minutes. And Comodo AV keeps the bugs away, as I had her bring it down just a couple of weeks ago to give it a checkup and all was good.

Both are 100% free, work on X86 and X64, and Comodo AV even has a sandbox built in that will automatically run installers and new apps in the sandbox if you desire, and you can have it run any app at any time sandboxed. You can even tell it to run her FF sandboxed and she'll never know the difference. Trust me, Hairyfeet is good, Hairyfeet is wise ;-)

That is why I give the people I care about (as well as use myself) Comodo AV so they don't have to worry about expiring AV. While I agree that it is good that his AV gave him a heads up, I'd rather they not have to worry about expiring at all. I've got family members that can make a WinXP PC have more viruses than a Bangkok Whore, and Comodo has kept them clean as a whistle.

It doesn't hassle you, or bug you to upgrade to the pay version, has a much better firewall than Windows, and when combined with Comodo Time Machine makes it so short of a hardware failure their PC will be easily recoverable, even if they do something REALLY stupid.

So as someone who has been using their products, on both x86 and x64, I highly recommend them. One word of advice though, don't use time machine with a dual boot involving Windows 7. It won't screw anything up, it simply won't install thanks to Windows 7 changing its drive letter to C. If you have 7 on C and XP on D it works fine, just not the other way around. But other than that after two years on several desktops and laptops not a single problem.

That is why I give the people I care about (as well as use myself) Comodo AV so they don't have to worry about expiring AV. While I agree that it is good that his AV gave him a heads up, I'd rather they not have to worry about expiring at all. I've got family members that can make a WinXP PC have more viruses than a Bangkok Whore, and Comodo has kept them clean as a whistle.

It doesn't hassle you, or bug you to upgrade to the pay version, has a much better firewall than Windows, and when combined with Comodo Time Machine makes it so short of a hardware failure their PC will be easily recoverable, even if they do something REALLY stupid.

So as someone who has been using their products, on both x86 and x64, I highly recommend them. One word of advice though, don't use time machine with a dual boot involving Windows 7. It won't screw anything up, it simply won't install thanks to Windows 7 changing its drive letter to C. If you have 7 on C and XP on D it works fine, just not the other way around. But other than that after two years on several desktops and laptops not a single problem.

That is why I highly recommend Comodo Internet Security as it is free for personal use, so no subscriptions to run out, low resource ( according to process explorer it is using a whole 15Mb and 0% CPU while running both the firewall and AV) and most importantly IT WORKS.

Comodo is snake oil. The concept of use is when you install new software put it in training mode. Except training mode isn't per application, it's systemwide and if any process does something you blocked before, it now gets whitelisted. There is a known problem that with full screen games that if comodo tries to popup at all the computer locks up on quitting the game. Comodo's response, mark the game trusted or put it in training mode.

https://forums.comodo.com/frequently-asked-questions-faq-for-comodo-firewall/a-note-to-gamers-t20008.0.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=comodo+black+screen

So if you have a program that you don't explicitly trust that uses fullscreen mode there's no way to handle it securely with comodo. Worse if you run a program while comodo is protecting you, that program can go to fullscreen mode and crash computer from a user account. Some protection that is...

That is why I highly recommend Comodo Internet Security as it is free for personal use, so no subscriptions to run out, low resource ( according to process explorer it is using a whole 15Mb and 0% CPU while running both the firewall and AV) and most importantly IT WORKS. I have relatives that are "clicky clicky" happy and will pick up more viruses than a Bangkok Whore, and Comodo has kept their machines squeaky clean.

Now as for TFA, I'd have some questions before I'd believe their "results", for example-What percentage of those that donate don't list their OS? Does their game equally appeal to Windows users? How many Windows users have downloaded the game? does their product mainly appeal to those looking for free stuff?

I know that this is the first time I've ever heard of this bunch, and looking at their "games list" here I don't see anything that would really appeal to a Windows user. Lets be honest here folks, it isn't like Windows users are hurting for quality top notch games. From Good Old Games to Steam, from the Amazon bargain bin to the latest AAA titles, it isn't like Windows users have to scour the backwoods of the Internet for games. My guess is since there is less Linux games it is simply easier to get noticed on that platform, whereas we Windows gamers frankly have games coming out our ears and don't really look much at the indy stuff unless it makes a big splash like World of Goo.

Nope. I have run into this bug, and I have 20Gb set for SR. I figured it was a dual boot issue, as I noticed whenever I booted into XP32 and then back to W7 x64 my SR points went bye bye.

For those that have a single boot I would recommend Comodo Time Machine as I have been using this for quite awhile and it works great. Unfortunately it doesn't like how W7 changes partition letters on the fly, so if you dual boot with W7 installed on anything other than C: it won't work. But if you are running single boot XP/Vista/W7, it is a great tool to use and much better than SR IMHO.

They're freely available from comodo and instantssl. http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-products/free-email-certificate.html http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-email-certificate.php

However they just verify your email address not your identity, but fortunately nobody is going to notice that...

Well if your store does that I congratulate you sir, because it certainly isn't that way in the states, at least from Walmart, Best Buy, or Office Depot (our local Staples is more corporate and make their money selling laser AIOs, not desktops/laptops so I haven't worked on any of theirs) as I have had to work on models sold by the above very recently and ALL had the auto updates turned OFF. And since we are talking about non technical working folks I kinda doubt they went in and turned off auto updates, since most non techs are afraid to even mess around anywhere near control panel.

As for the moron that keeps modding me down, hey guess what? Here is a link from Panda AV describing EXACTLY what I said, rogue AV being installed via drive by downloads! What are the odds, a guy with 15 years in the business actually knows what the hell he is talking about! Amazing!

Frankly everyone in the IT world needs to care about this, because the massive botnets created by these unpatched machines affect us all. The average number of infections of an unpatched PC that cross my desk is over 500, yet time after time after TIME I get machines from big box retailers crossing my desk with auto updates turned off. This is NOT a coincidence, or legions of people that couldn't find the control panel applet suddenly deciding that updates are bad, no this is just a really shitty image policy of some big box retailers. According to the above poster it doesn't happen at Staples, at least in his area, and since to my knowledge I haven't had any of their tech, take that back, I had one of their Black Friday POS "specials" (WTF? A Celeron DESKTOP chip in a laptop?) and it had the updates for XP turned off, but that was pre Windows 7 so maybe they have changed, or maybe it is just a local problem.

But I have had more Wally World and Worst Buy (Ugh Worst Buy...were POS is actually a compliment) "specials" cross my desk, and I can honestly say I have YET to see one, just one, with updates even turned to notify. Remember folks, this affects us all. When granny or sally clueless gets turned into a member of a botnet it is YOUR email servers that get buried in spam, it is YOUR websites that they hack or DDOS, and it is YOUR Internet that slows to a crawl when they crapflood the pipes with the latest worm. I think in this day and age of drive by downloads asking for sane policies OOTB for big box retail PCs isn't too much to ask for, and I applaud the Nova Scotia Staples for having sane IT policies. From those of us that don't have to clean up after your PCs, thanks.

Try Comodo. Free for personal, decent business and server rates, catches everything my customers can throw at it (and I get some stuuupid click happy customers, so that is high praise) and is solid as a rock. Most importantly I have been running it along with my clients and have never had one of these McAffe/Norton style stupid moments.

And if you add Comodo Time Machine to the equation you won't ever have to worry about one of these "borked beyond booting" moments, as even when Windows won't boot Time Machine gives you an easy to use GUI that makes it butt simple to restore the machine back to a working state. The only catch I've found with Time Machine is it doesn't like dual boot XP/7 machines, due to Windows 7 changing drive letters, but even then it won't cause any problems it just refuses to install.

So give them a try. It has certainly made this old repair guy's life a hell of a lot easier.

Try Comodo. Free for personal, decent business and server rates, catches everything my customers can throw at it (and I get some stuuupid click happy customers, so that is high praise) and is solid as a rock. Most importantly I have been running it along with my clients and have never had one of these McAffe/Norton style stupid moments.

And if you add Comodo Time Machine to the equation you won't ever have to worry about one of these "borked beyond booting" moments, as even when Windows won't boot Time Machine gives you an easy to use GUI that makes it butt simple to restore the machine back to a working state. The only catch I've found with Time Machine is it doesn't like dual boot XP/7 machines, due to Windows 7 changing drive letters, but even then it won't cause any problems it just refuses to install.

So give them a try. It has certainly made this old repair guy's life a hell of a lot easier.

Ninite works beautifully and oh yeah...NO TOOLBARS! That's right, no stupid Java trying to push Yahoo toolbar, no toolbars at all. it all just works. As for the PC? I would go with this one for the budget, as it is a 2.8GHz (more than most folks need) with a 40Gb HDD and 512Mb of RAM. As for not being able to run XP on 512Mb because of AV? well let me say BAM! Here you go, no problemo. Comodo uses around 10Mb of RAM, and that is including the superior firewall instead of Windows Firewall, and is 100% free to boot. Simply add Comodo Time Machine and you have a machine that even your grandma can recover, even if she manages to screw it up so bad it won't boot. Of course you could probably pick up a 512Mb stick of DDR on eBay for $10-$20, still cheap for a good PC.

So as you can see it really ain't hard to go cheap with a Windows box. All told we are talking a price of $109 with shipping, with no need for antivirus subscriptions or spending a penny on software. And I bet you are gonna love Ninite. I have been using it since it was beta and it really is top notch and simple. Oh and if there is any freeware you would like added to the list? Simply fill in then form and they will look into it. I asked for Klite codec pack (because with its built in DXVA support it really is a "one stop shop" for hardware acceleration on modern machines) and voila! There it is. A really great bunch and if you need even more their pay version lets you set up custom repos on your own network so you can have any third party apps ready to go for your users. And it is so easy even the most clueless of users can choose and install their own programs with it.

Give it a try, I bet you'll find it a "must use" website like I do, as it really takes the sting out of setting up a new Windows box. Between Ninite and Autopatcher allowing me to keep all windows updates from XP-Windows 7 X64 on a network share it has really cut down the amount of time and bandwidth needed to go from a bare drive to a fully loaded Windows PC.

Ninite works beautifully and oh yeah...NO TOOLBARS! That's right, no stupid Java trying to push Yahoo toolbar, no toolbars at all. it all just works. As for the PC? I would go with this one for the budget, as it is a 2.8GHz (more than most folks need) with a 40Gb HDD and 512Mb of RAM. As for not being able to run XP on 512Mb because of AV? well let me say BAM! Here you go, no problemo. Comodo uses around 10Mb of RAM, and that is including the superior firewall instead of Windows Firewall, and is 100% free to boot. Simply add Comodo Time Machine and you have a machine that even your grandma can recover, even if she manages to screw it up so bad it won't boot. Of course you could probably pick up a 512Mb stick of DDR on eBay for $10-$20, still cheap for a good PC.

So as you can see it really ain't hard to go cheap with a Windows box. All told we are talking a price of $109 with shipping, with no need for antivirus subscriptions or spending a penny on software. And I bet you are gonna love Ninite. I have been using it since it was beta and it really is top notch and simple. Oh and if there is any freeware you would like added to the list? Simply fill in then form and they will look into it. I asked for Klite codec pack (because with its built in DXVA support it really is a "one stop shop" for hardware acceleration on modern machines) and voila! There it is. A really great bunch and if you need even more their pay version lets you set up custom repos on your own network so you can have any third party apps ready to go for your users. And it is so easy even the most clueless of users can choose and install their own programs with it.

Give it a try, I bet you'll find it a "must use" website like I do, as it really takes the sting out of setting up a new Windows box. Between Ninite and Autopatcher allowing me to keep all windows updates from XP-Windows 7 X64 on a network share it has really cut down the amount of time and bandwidth needed to go from a bare drive to a fully loaded Windows PC.

From the Comodo Time Machine download page:

How is CTM functionally different or better than the regular Windows System Restore (WSR) feature?
WSR only restores certain elements such as the registry and system files. CTM restores your entire system– including files, folders and installed programs. This is invaluable for many reasons. If you accidentally delete important data you can instantly reclaim it. If your files become infected by viruses you can restore them to a time before the infection occurred. Incidentally, CTM is perfectly compatible with WSR and you can run both together quite happily. However, you may want to consider disabling WSR in order to save disk space and resource usage.

That is why I use and would recommend Comodo Time Machine as it gives you a nice little screen before boot where you just hit the home key and can restore your machine from snapshot before the little boo boo. And if the Bitdefender burn has turned you off of them I would try Comodo AV/Firewall from the same company. Both are free, no nags or need to register, and I have been running it on both 32 and 64 bit XP and Windows 7.

Note-not affiliated with the company, just a humble PC repairman that has tried just about every AV and security software out there and found Comodo to be the best all around. I have been running them on XP X64 for a couple of years now and never had any show stoppers like this. In fact the only problem I've ever seen with a Comodo product is you can't run Time Machine in a dual boot with Windows 7 and XP because 7 changes drive letters, but even then there wasn't any hangup or problems, it simply wouldn't install.

But if your machine is running a single OS Time Machine can keep problems like TFA from happening. I have had family members bork their machines beyond booting and with Time Machine I was able to walk them through restoring from snapshot in under 15 minutes. hell of a lot better than a multi-hour reinstall.

That is why I use and would recommend Comodo Time Machine as it gives you a nice little screen before boot where you just hit the home key and can restore your machine from snapshot before the little boo boo. And if the Bitdefender burn has turned you off of them I would try Comodo AV/Firewall from the same company. Both are free, no nags or need to register, and I have been running it on both 32 and 64 bit XP and Windows 7.

Note-not affiliated with the company, just a humble PC repairman that has tried just about every AV and security software out there and found Comodo to be the best all around. I have been running them on XP X64 for a couple of years now and never had any show stoppers like this. In fact the only problem I've ever seen with a Comodo product is you can't run Time Machine in a dual boot with Windows 7 and XP because 7 changes drive letters, but even then there wasn't any hangup or problems, it simply wouldn't install.

But if your machine is running a single OS Time Machine can keep problems like TFA from happening. I have had family members bork their machines beyond booting and with Time Machine I was able to walk them through restoring from snapshot in under 15 minutes. hell of a lot better than a multi-hour reinstall.

Uhhhh...Comodo actually HAS its own firewall with their AV, and is much better IMHO than ZoneAlarm, although if you wish to keep ZoneAlarm firewall you can just uncheck the Comodo Firewall and it will work just fine. But if you give it a try you'll find Comodo Firewall has much nicer controls, better ability to do fine grained control of the firewall if you so desire, all the way down to defining network security policies per port and IP if you so desire, but if you don't their defaults are actually sane and work just fine.

Oh and the combined total of Comodo AV plus Firewall is using less than 12Mb of RAM, and that is with it monitoring 149 inbound connections and a dozen out as I download from multiple sites on this old 1.8Ghz Sempron box. So while I use to use ZoneAlarm and Outpost firewall back in 05/06 after giving Comodo a spin on one of my test rigs I found it worked so well I dumped both my AV and firewall and went with Comodo.

But if you are really worried about maybe messing up a setting in ZoneAlarm or something simply install Comodo Time Machine first and make a snapshot. It only takes a few seconds to make a snapshot and then if you decide Comodo AV/Firewall isn't right for you in a day, week, month, whatever, you simply use the snapshot to go back before installation and it is like you never had it on your PC. It is really great for trying software you aren't sure about.

Try Comodo. I have tried AVG, AntiVir, Avast, and MSE, and out of all of them I've found Comodo to be the best when it comes to resources, lack of irritation, and catching nasties. And if you are worried about PC usage? I'm typing this on a 1.8GHz Sempron I use as a netbox, and Comodo is using 0% CPU and just 12Mb of RAM ATM, and that is with both Comodo AV and Firewall.

What I've found the best about it is that you can have it both ways. If you just want to install it and walk away that's fine, as its defaults are sensible without anything needing to be touched. On the other hand if you are the type that wants to tweak every setting or get really fine grained on the firewall, well it supports that as well. It really is a nice AV that doesn't bug the shit out of you with popups like many do.

It'll take it around 3 days to learn your routine, after that you may get a popup once a week when you do something unexpected or an app suddenly tries to call home. It is so quiet I even leave it running while gaming and it doesn't bother me or slow things down. I really can't say enough good things about it, and it sucks that nobody ever seems to bring it up on the big review sites. I have some relatives that can pick up more viruses than a Bangkok whore and Comodo has kept them squeaky clean, and that's saying something!

You're most welcome. And if you or TFA want total protection and control I would highly recommend combining Comodo AV/Firewall with another lesser known of their free products Comodo Time Machine which is kinda hard to describe, best description would be system restore on steroids.

It makes a snapshot on first install, makes it easy to schedule snapshots, unlike System Restore it allows you to mark certain snapshots never to be erased (like when you install an app you aren't quite sure of) and according to Comodo you can even use it to roll back before malware got on board, but since Comodo AV has caught everything I haven't had a chance to see that particular feature in action. What I have used it for is those that are the type to bork their machines, as the built in GUI console allows for even a noob to restore windows after a failed boot up, very handy.

The only warning I have about it is DO NOT use if you are dual booting with Windows 7, as Windows 7 changes drive letters (for example my win 7 is installed on E: but shows C: when in win 7) which can throw it off, but it won't cause any damage, it simply fails to install. But for those that only have one OS it is a simple way to have insurance against boot failure due to bad software. It also uses few resources and can be used with system restore if you desire, but it works so much better I usually just kill System Restore to reclaim the space.

But with the two of those together, Comodo AV/Firewall plus Comodo Time Machine, you have an easy to use Windows install that is pretty damned hard to permanently bork. Comodo AV protects against the bugs, Comodo Time Machine protects from bad installs and most basic PEBKAC problems. And of course both are free, so you really have nothing to use by trying them. Note-Not affiliated with Comodo, just a happy user that is glad he doesn't have to spend so much time fixing relative's machines any more.

That is why I would recommend to TFA that he install Comodo as so far the detection rate has been excellent. It's free, doesn't suck up resources (currently using a whole 10Mb) has a MUCH better firewall than the one built into Windows, is easy for noobs to use, in short it "just works".

So if he wants something simple, easy, and free, with a really good detection rate and no bloat, I'd go with Comodo. I've even given it to my most clueless family members and so far nobody has had a bit of trouble understanding or using it. Comodo tries to make the alerts in plain English, doesn't pop up alerts unless there is something reasonable, very easy to manage. But you are right running without AV in this day and age is just stupid, especially when there are good AV programs like Comodo that doesn't cost a penny.

I would strenuously recommend against CIS. Their standalone firewall was great. Their standalone antivirus showed potential. When they merged them, they created an unholy freakshow. Unfortunately I recommended this to a lot of people, and installed it on a lot of machines myself.

It took me long time to lose faith -- I forgave a lot of shortcomings, dutifully reported bugs, false positives, false negatives. The program consistently found new ways to quarantine or delete necessary files, ignoring its own whitelists. Instead of fixing things, Comodo just kept piling on new features and bragging about the number of virus definitions. Their forum moderators would often belittle or ignore bug reports. The whole thing started to seem like a rinky-dink operation run by a few kids.

They also changed their virus definition format with every point update, and would immediately stop publishing definitions in the old format, which meant zero time for testing the new version before deployment.

The last straw was October (2009): they released a malformed set of virus definitions that completely hung most machines. All the boxes under my control had to be rebooted into safe mode to get CIS uninstalled.

Yes, it's free, even for commercial use -- but no sane money-making enterprise should use it. I've switched to MSE for all desktops and have never looked back.

I've used Comodo's free Home & Home Office products

I have been using Comod Internet Security. It does the Job. http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-internet-security.php

I can second that, it seems to work well. And it's the only one I've found that is free even for commercial use.

Comodo gives you firewall and anti-virus in one package, and I have been using it for a couple of years.

There are quite a few options actually. I'll list them in order of effectiveness.

1. BSD or Linux. You won't get hit by viruses or any crap like that, unless you're enough of a moron to run everything as root and go out of your way to make the system open. Unfortunately neither option will run 100% of your Windows software.

2. Unplug your Windows box. Guaranteed 100% effective. The drawback is that apps won't run. ;)

3. Comodo antivirus; http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html I have been trying it on various workstations and have found it to be reasonably good. Less effective than the above options! ;) Seriously though it's pretty good. It's not antispyware though, and it doesn't slow the system to a crawl like some other programs. That should be a non-issue. If not, then why are you running MSIE after you've been warned for years? ;)

4. Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft actually did a very good job with this basic suite. It's not bloated at all, is straight and to the point, and catches some spyware even malwarebytes misses. It's good now, but then again, Microsoft has dropped the ball with every antivirus and antispyware software they have installed to date.

5. You could try Norton Internet Security. I understand they've completely rearchitected it and brought over NO legacy code and are not bloated so you might want to try it, but I haven't looked at the Norton suite since the 2003 version that turned their antivirus into a failed abortion.

I was using Moon Secure on various systems for a while: it's free, open source, etc. but it has not been updated in forever and is rapidly becoming less and less effective, plus it has quite a few defects including making the Windows logon process EXTREMELY slow on some configurations.

I have been using Comod Internet Security. It does the Job. http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-internet-security.php

Or they should be able to use system restore from command prompt and go back to before the update that borked the machine. After getting the machine back up and running I prefer to give them Comodo Time Machine which allows them to press the home key if they ever end up in a "no boot" situation, and I set it for daily snapshots.

Comodo time Machine is simple enough that anybody can use it, and having its own boot console with easy to use GUI means even if the PC won't boot they can still restore from snapshot. Much easier than all that mess you typed.

even companies working in the security market don't use encrypted email and often don't even understand how to use it...

Comodo is one of them. They want you to send various ID documents via unencrypted email and don't offer alternatives. I asked for a more secure method but they literally had no idea what I was talking about despite selling the product I was inquiring to use as a secure means of sending the documents. Fucking morons.

Oh believe me pal, I can share some Worst Buy horror stories. The last shop I worked for (Now I do mostly SOHO and SMBs and the only home users are brought to me by word of mouth) was the "go to" place for those poor souls that went to Worst Buy.

Here are just a few that I can remember off the top of my head: One guy went in with a nearly $500 graphics card, came out with a $50 one, which of course when I told him and he went screaming to Worst Buy said "You can't prove you had a decent card in there". Folks opening their "new" PC and finding other folks stuff (and often porn) in it (that one happened A LOT). Folks going in with X amount of RAM and coming back with Y (also popular, some even had the RAM ripped out breaking the retention clips right off the mobo), that one BTW also happened to my current GF when she took her PC to rent a ripoff before she met me, so apparently that is a common FU. Parts put in upside down or even backwards (one had the floppy drive installed vis hammer) hell I could go on all damned day.

As for a good AV/firewall combo, may I recommend Comodo Internet Security? It is feature rich, without the user having to know squat, low resource, doesn't slow the machine to a crawl, and so far I haven't had a single malware infection come across my desk from a box loaded with Comodo, which considering some of the business owners I deal with is saying a lot. Pretty much your users will have to ignore every warning and continue installing to get a bug around Comodo, and of course in that case there is really nothing that will stop an ID10T error.

And for computer problems I would suggest downloading a copy of this, the Computer-Repair-Utility-Kit-V2. It has more than 50 tools that fix the most common problems (great for field work), it is butt simple to add your own tools like Malwarebytes Antimal to it (which I also use), fits just fine on a cheapo 1Gb flash stick, and has just about everything you'd need to find and fix common problems. The ClamAV it comes with is out of date of course, but that is easy to fix. Slap it on a thumbstick, update it once a week, and you are good to go.

But I have to agree, you can only do so much before the problems become PEBKAC. But I have found like you that a few sane policies (FF over IE, autoupdates on, fully patched Windows, decent AV/firewall) goes a LONG way to cutting down rates of infection. I have customer's PCs that have been running for years without a single bug thanks to a little sane policy setting on my part.

COMODO Easy VPN Its free and has remote desktop features built in. Also since its a vpn it works as if the connected computer is on a the same network and transfers file the same way. Also you dont have to configure your router to use it. http://easy-vpn.comodo.com/ that's the home page.

I notice the "replicating the config files" is talking about servers. Like I said servers are a completely different animal than desktops with home users. Sure, if you have 100 twinkie servers or an enterprise where every. single. desktop. is an exact copy of the other one? Yeah then Linux is no problem there whatsoever. But with home users we are talking a God awful mix of Dell and HP and whitebox and who the hell knows what added into it. With those I doubt VERY seriously that shell scripts are gonna work because you would have no fricking clue as to what is installed or running on that thing.

With home users the twinkie nature of the registry makes life a WHOLE lot simpler, as HKEY LOCAL MACHINE is the same everywhere. The same .reg file that works on Granny's PC works on little Timmy's down the hall. Which is why I don't get the hate, as trying to manage the myriad of different hardware environments goes from being a world of pain to a "clicky clicky and reboot" situation.

As for startup? If you don't want to deal with MSconfig, which frankly was a piss poor design, then there is always Startup CPL the standalone version. Only 34k and no need to install anything. Just "clicky clicky" and there is all the startups in nice little columns. Sadly MSFT has always been piss poor when it comes to designing built in solutions, which is why there are so many tools like EasyVPN that lets you chat with a person while taking full control of a desktop and fixing their problems. There of course is also standalone tools based on VNC that let you send them a simple .exe and take control that way. Either is better IMNSHO that Remote desktop. And as for managing 100s of desktops? That is what .MSI and GPO is for.

But again enterprise is a totally different beast than home users, which is what I'd say a good 80%+ of desktops out there are. And again that is where IMNSHO the reg really shines. It is the same no matter what the hardware, it is as easy as firing up notepad to cook up a .reg file, and it takes all the thinking away from the home user, so instead of "sudo gedit /name of config file/"(its been awhile so excuse if I didn't get the command correct) and a bunch of commands I can just say "see that file I sent you? Yeah just clicky clicky that and reboot" and I still say it just don't get any easier than that for home users, which is why we haven't seen MSFT try to toss the registry for Unix style config files. And with so many third parties making software for Windows you just know that config files would look like somebody blasted the HDD with a shotgun. Just look at how long it has taken to get developers to not assume everyone is admin. With the registry everyone from Adobe to ZBrush is in ONE spot, and I can easily manipulate the settings with a small and simple file. And I still say it just don't get any easier than that.

That is why I switched to Comodo after using AVG for years. Comodo works great on XP 32/64 and Vista 32/64, doesn't suck up a bunch of resources or CPU like AVG 8, has a nice built in firewall (which you can choose not to install if you just want AV, but I like having more control of the firewall) and so far seems to catch any nasties that I have thrown at it.

So if anybody is still on the bloated AVG 8, give Comodo a try. You can tweak it to your heart's content if you like, or just leave everything at its default and it works great out of the box. It really is an easy to use AV without all the extra bloat. And having a native 64 bit client is really nice for those of us that have made the switch, although I can say their 32 bit version is just as nice and easy from running it on my laptop. So give it a try, and I bet if you're on AVG 8 you won't go back to AVG after using Comodo.

Uhhhh...You DO know that you can get nice free firewall/antivirus from Comodo right? It is nice, easy to use, and takes care of itself pretty much It also has 32 and 64 bit support for both XP and Vista. So while I am not happy about MSFT lying about XP (what happened to "support until 2014?") it isn't like having a real firewall (who wants the crappy XP default one) is any real work.

So while I bought Win7 HP when it was $50, I think I'll be sticking to XP 32/64 for the foreseeable future, and just play with Win7 so I can learn its quirks to work on new Win7 boxes that walk into my shop. Lucky for me the only "work" I had to do with Vista was customers screaming "Get that $^$# off my PC!" so I didn't need to keep a copy of that turdburger. But am I the only one that thought "support" actually meant support, not "kinda sorta when we feel like it" support? First Win2K which is supposed to get another year, and now XP. MSFT better have a plan B, because if Win7 turns into another Turdburger this bullshit has burnt their bridges with regards to XP. After all, who is gonna want to buy an OS that they ain't even doing security patches for anymore?

As a PC repairman I hate to break the news to y'all, but home users never update the damned PC. you could give them Apt and it would be just one more update they don't actually use. I have had machine come across my desk with 4+ year old copies of Norton AV (expired of course) and not a single update applied since it left the factory. That is just SOP for a good 90% of home users.

That is why my customers love me so much, because my motto is "do the thinking so they don't have to". So not only do I use Autopatcher to install all the current updates and have the latest service packs as well as set autoupdate for the OS, but I install Foxit set to autoupdate, have Spybot scheduled to autoupdate and scan, install Comodo AV/Firewall and have it set to scan on the customers schedule, install Firefox and set it to be the default browser, install the latest Flash and Shockwave and Java as well as Klite Mega codec pack so I don't have to worry about them downloading dodgy codecs, and finally install VLC Player which autoupdates and have it set as default video player.

While I don't get the return business of those that just reinstall and hand it to the customer to bone again I make up for that in referrals. But thinking something like Apt would be a silver bullet for home users is strictly a fantasy. First it would have to be run by MSFT to incorporate the Windows patches as well as third party updates, which would lead to vendors screaming and probably an antitrust investigation and I'm sure the EU would find a reason to have a shitfit, but then MSFT would get to deal with 3 or 4 years worth of lawsuits when they refuse to "provide" the myriad of programs that insist on installing toolbars or unrelated programs, like Java (toolbar) or iTunes (unrelated Safari and Quicktime).

So while having a central repository works for Linux, it simply would never work for Windows. Between trialware, crapware, toolbar installers, and unrelated installers you would either make it a one stop shop for crap which means the users would never allow it to run, or MSFT would spend the next decade in court for refusing to allow crapware into the repository. So sorry, it just wouldn't work.