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This is why I get irritated at people who constantly go off about how much cheaper PCs are than macs. They never mention these little things, and these little things start to add up real fast
You go out and pay $70-$100 for a firewall, get a mcafee virus scan subscription for $35/year. Oh, just to be safe you better grab yourself the latest copy of AdAware, another $40-ish dollars down the drain. Holy cow, your $499 pc now cost you like $700 for the bare minimum! And that's just the beginning of the pain you're in for. You can't use your regular browser, no sir! You need Firefox to avoid totally foobaring your computer. Download and install that.

You want to talk about honesty, at least be honest yourself.
New PC: $499 + Tax/Shipping
Firewall: DI-604 w/NAT $49.99 source
Ok, its just NAT, not really a firewall, but it accomplished the purpose
Firewall (part 2): Zone Alarm, free for home use.
Virus Scanner: AVG Free for home use
AdAware: Free for home use
Spybot S&D: Free for home use, because 2 is better than one
So, that $499 has only managed to make it up to $549, not $700. Yes, this requires a little bit of thought, but not a lot. If the user can manage to get AdAware, they can get the rest as well. Plus, I would imagine that, by now, most homes will have some sort of router, reguardless of OS,

Get a real virus scanner. It's just as free, doesn't use evil ActiveX, and will work when your system is too fucked to get online.

Or something along those lines. ;-)

Anyway... Yes, physical security tops the list. The 'Lab' area of our home, where I do 95% of my work for both home-based business and hobby, is heavily alarmed with PIR motion and door sensors. Visitors are never left alone in the area, and computers are logged off or locked except when they're in immediate use at that moment.

All the systems are secured with difficult-to-guess passwords, and the main house entry itself is protected with electronic access control (proximity cards) and a Medeco high-security mortise lock. The alarm system fires off a notification of intrusion or panic to the monitoring center within ten seconds of being triggered.

Our 'net presence has a hardware firewall (a Watchguard Firebox series unit) that provides NAT and other protections too numerous to go into here.

Our wireless access point runs WPA with a huge key and MAC-address filtering, and is on a separate subnet off of the Firebox. The only stations permitted to even try to connect are those who have their MAC address in our ACL. In addition, I'll be setting up a RADIUS server soon, so the WPA keys get rotated regularly.

All the workstations have current antivirus packages that update regularly (thank you, AVG Antivirus!)

NO ONE is permitted to connect to our LAN from the inside without my express consent, and this means that I check out the system they're proposing to use thoroughly before they hook up. If they don't want to allow me access for an anti-spyware and anti-virus scan, I'm happy to point them towards the free wireless access at the Covington Library.

If all else fails, we turn the dragons loose. If the Knights of Olde didn't so well in their armor, what chance do you think some hapless script-kiddie wannabe is going to have?

After all, dragons need junk food too...

Do you think I'm paranoid? Who wants to know? And why?

Hm. As a Powerbook - and desktop PC - owner, I wanted to beat the writer of that article about the head with the Mini-Mac. The author goes on about how silly people are when comparing cheap computers - then makes the exact same mistakes that he just criticised.

Talk about missing the point. These types of computers are for the basics - email, word processing, web browsing. Maybe playing music and copying digital photos. Nothing more. So long as it does this, who cares? Nobody buys a $300 computer for games or digital video editing. It's particularly harsh when you expect the world for nothing. Perspective, please.

Addressing the basic issues / misconceptions raised against the Dell in the article (and the user comments):

* Antivirus - there's an excellent free antivirus available if you know where to look.
* The cheapest DVI card I've seen is $19. Hardly pricy. If you require DVI, what are you doing with a $300 computer anyway?
* Integrated video memory - will only use lots of video memory when you're playing games. It's possible to run Windows XP on a 10 year old 4MB graphics card. No hardware acceleration, obviously, but it works. If you're really worried about it, use your $19 DVI card.
* XP Home doesn't support *domain authentication*. This means you can't make XP join a secured corporate network. You can still see other computers on local networks, home LANs are still plug & play.
* No Firewire. Add a firewire card if you want, but I suspect you'll not be spending $2000 on a digicam, then plug it in to a $300 computer to edit the video.

Firstly, get Thunderbird and use its rather excellent spam filter.
It also allows you to very easily to filter out email you really want to keep so you can set up a whitelist of addresses you're happy to receive email from.

Secondly, yes you can use Firefox instead of IE to avoid those IE-targetted malicious websites snaring you.

Thirdly, get some anti-virus software and adware-killer software (Adaware and Spybot Search & Destroy together will do a lot) and you'll massively reduce the chances of infection. You can get free anti-virus software from Grisoft here.
No that's probably not the best anti-virus protection around but it does mean anyone can get some level of protection and not just those who can afford Norton et al.

Fourthly, get a firewall like Zone Alarm or just turn on the one that comes with Windows XP SP2.

With a point in the right direction it becomes a load easier to manage everything.

The internet experience doesn't have to be this way, but when the powers that be (Microsoft, mostly) sit on their laurels and allow the situation to degenerate, what hope is there?

Which has recently been renamed AVG Free Edition

AVG Personal Edition

Well, best is to try I'd say. I am really, really impressed.

Being a mac convert for 1 year, I didn't test latest free version (AVG 7) but it was the one hunted all those evil trojans on norton 24/7 running machine.

http://www.grisoft.com/

Its Czech coded, no fancy gfx like Symantec but does the job.

For commercial installations I'd suggest it, also I'd suggest F-Prot which is a legend already.

Karpersky can be real real bad on some configurations but I'd also suggest it AFTER trying http://www.karpersky.ru/

I just had NAV2005 installed on a friend's infected PC and it did Virus and Spywares at the same time. This and Ad-Aware seems a good solution which

I've always used Miranda IM (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo) rather than Gaim (I hate its messaging style :) ), and never have looked at Trillian.
I have not heard of AGP, Grisoft AVG you meant?
For text editors, I usually use EditPad Lite
Everyone has their own preferences and likes. :)

AGP? virus scanner?

Perhaps you refer to AVG by http://www.grisoft.com/

On the other hand, the question is about windows. Here's the best freeware list I've found, taken off of the neowin.net forums. These are not guaranteed Clean, but most of them are. Also, you might want to check tinyapps.org, which specializes in SMALL apps (usually not enough space for ad/spyware).
Category 3D Graphics: ----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/CharacterCountF ilterForAValidList----
3Delight Free - http://www.3delight.com/index.htm
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Aqsis - http://www.aqsis.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Houdini (Free Edition) - http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services...ple/i ndex.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.h tm
OpenFX - http://www.openfx.org
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Toxic - http://www.toxicengine.org/
Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/
Category Anti-Virus:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Char acterCountFilterForAValidList----
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/
ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/
Category Anti Spyware:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Bazooka - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm l
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
Category IRC Clients:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.silverex.org/news/
Category Audio Players:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Billy - http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy
CoolPlayer - http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/
DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/
Foobar 2

in this order . .
http://nonags.com/
http://www.pricelessware.org/thelist/index.htm
http://www.doom9.org/ (click on the download button on the left)
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/
http://www.komando.com/shareware_index.asp
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best.htm

Do I need to mention sourceforge and freshmeat?

Not sure if http://skype.com/ is listed in the above lists - it is surely worth mentioning but sometimes requires a USB headset purchase to tweak it, which is well worth the expense since this software often rivals Vonage service in quality when calling pots lines (non-free) and blows away anything when calling pc to pc (free).

http://grouper.com/

http://www.ultravnc.com/ is almost always my preference over tightvnc.

Realplayer is not that bad if it is tweaked - you have to look for the setting that disables automatic ownership of filetypes.

http://kerio.com/ is my firewall preference over ZoneAlarm and Sygate, although the windows xp built-in is is usable. Kerio keeps an eye on changing files via an md5 hash.

http://grisoft.com/, in most cases, would be my recommendation for AV software.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/ is great if you have the connection for it.

And if you want more free software then download emule.

um uh . . erase that last line

It clearly says that he doesn't guarentee that they are free of spyware. Just clean to the best of his knowledge. If the program was really popular, some clever person might notice the extra network packets even without the source.

One such non-libre but free as in beer program I use is the free version of AVG which I really recommend. Although it us only free for home use so it might not qualify?

Here's my list of spyware/adware free apps, in no particular order:

Crap Cleaner - Cleans temp files, cookies, etc
P2P + Codec Packs - Kazaa Lite Resurrection, K-Lite Codec Packs, QuickTime Alternative, Real Alternative
Gmail Notifier - System tray icon that checks your google mail
Winamp - Media Player
Open Office - Office Suite
AbiWord - Word Processing
GIMP - Image Editor
Paint.Net - Image Editor
AVG Antivirus - Decent free antivirus
Everest Home - System diagnostics and benchmarking solution
Daemon Tools - CD/DVD emulator
Zone Alarm - The free version is a decent firewall
CWShredder - Removes CoolWeb adware

Ad-aware
AVG 7 Anti-virus
QCD player
Real & Quicktime Alternative.
Skype
Miranda
SoulSeek
FileZilla

True, one can download anti-spyware programs using Firefox, but don't anti-virus programs cost money to download?

Under Windows, it's considered the norm for each publisher to use its own software update notification system.

Grisoft's AVG Free Edition. It includes a resident monitor and also an email scanner for Outlook. Better still the new version works while Windows is in Safe Mode (usually prevents most viruses from starting automatically). It's the best AV scanner I've ever used.

Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus. Make sure you get AVG 7.0 because support for 6 will end with 2004. No complaints, but I only run it now-and-then because the idea is to stop them before they get installed.

Try Grisoft's AVG, Free Edition Only lacks a couple of features of their full edition that aren't really that important. Definitions are kept up-to-date, and I find that it uses less resources and scans much faster than any commercial software.

Trend Micro http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_cor p.asp has a free online virus scanner that I run once a week. It has found viruses that Norton did not detect.

The problem with Trend's online scan is that it requires ActiveX (thus IE).

Better to go with a fulltime and free (as in money) virus scanner, like AVG Antivirus

Slackware, you insensitive clod! ;-)

Actually on a serious note, I install (for my mother, family and friends)...

7-zip
gs / gsview
Firefox / Thunderbird
AVG
WinPT
Eraser
OpenOffice
Gimp (depending on the family member or friend)
Gaim
FileZilla
Amaya (only because bluefish is not available on win32 yet)
RealVNC
VIM
irFanview
Azureus (depending on the family member or friend)
Daemon Tools (depending on the family member or friend)

Why pay??

Try AVG--Free in the US

And Kerio -- Free as well.

AVG Antivirus is a good choice as well. I put it on all the machines that I pull from the apocalypse. :P ;D

1) Try the MS download site, not the Windows Update site. (Although you'll have to download the patches individually that way) AutoPatcher is a handy alternative for Win2k/XP/2k3, but the XP release doesn't work with SP2 as yet.

2) Try the MS Download site.

3) For windows? I use AVG Anti-Virus.

I have a cute little hand-out Flyer Posted over on my spreadfirefox blog.
I also higly recommend Kerio Personal Firewall -- I think better than other firewall products -- has a built in updater system too.
Also Grisoft's AVG 6.0 Free Is essential -- very excellent free anti-virus software -- just set it to download updates every day.

AVG Anti-Virus Guard http://grisoft.com/

While installing, sit behind a router.

Once system is up and running, grab AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, ZoneAlarm, set them up, update them all, scan your system.

AVG Anti-Virus Guard http://grisoft.com/ While installing, sit behind a router. Once system is up and running, grab AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, ZoneAlarm, set them up, update them all, scan your system.

Goddamn. The things people do to run Windows... It makes me glad I use Linux.

I haven't really customized my firewalls. All the software I use is free.

Win2k: AVG, Ad-Aware, SpyBot - Search and Destroy, Spyware Blaster

Linux: nada

I don't have a chance to dig up links for these, but diagnostic tools are a must if you really want to lock stuff down. First, generate and read logfiles whenever possible. Check things out with nmap, tcpdump, ActivePorts, Look@Lan, Kiwi syslog Daemon, Portlistener XP, Bazooka Spyware Utility, Spybot Search and Destroy, Socketlock ... the list goes on. Generally try any tool you can and you'll get a feel for what is actually to your tastes and useful.

Use a hardware router that filters out *ALL* unsolicited incoming internet connections. This should 'hide' your computer from others while on the internet. In addition, use a software firewall program such as Outpost.

Install an antivirus program such as AVG and keep it constantly up-to-date.

'Harden IE' by disabling ActiveX, Java, and Javascript. No more IE 0wnage!

Delete/rename the Windows Scripting Host. No more 0wnage via VBScript!

By doing all of the above, it should now be safe to use Outlook (Express) to check your email and not get 0wned by some email-based exploit. Be on the lookout for spam (FREE V14gr4!!!), phish (id theft attempts), fraud (Nigerian advanced fee fraud), and malware (the latest Wintel/OE mass-mailing-virus). To avoid running emailed malware by accident, consider using my approach which renders known and unknown emailed malware 'inert' and safe to handle provided the system hasn't been compromised first.

Error Messages received when loading SP2:

Title of error message: migrate.exe - Entry Point Not Found

Error message 1: The procedure entry point GetIUMS could not be located in the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL.

Error message 2: The procedure entry point GetTextExtentPointI could not be located in the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL.

Resolution: There is a new MSDART.DLL in Windows XP Service Pack 2. Apparently, SP2 sometimes tries to use MSDART.DLL before it has copied it. If you happen to have an old version of MSDART.DLL on the system you are upgrading, it crashes and destroys your entire installation of Windows XP. After the crash, one machine would still boot, but the initial boot screen said "Windows Media Center" instead of "Windows XP Professional". This particular machine has been used by a very responsible office manager for two years without problems, and has never been near Windows Media Center. Very weird.

The newest version of MSDART.DL_ is in the random folder name created when running SP2, in the i386 sub-folder. This folder is deleted after SP2 finishes.

Run the command: EXPAND.EXE msdart.dl_ to unpack to MSDART.DLL. Then copy the new, SP2 version of MSDART.DLL to the C:\winnt\system32 or C:\windows\system32 folder, whichever is correct. (The second may be correct if you upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 98.)

I talked to someone at MS Tech support about this, who correctly identified that it was a problem with MSDART.DLL, but told me to download MDAC_TYP.EXE from Microsoft and install it. This did NOT solve the problem. MDAC_TYP.EXE has an old version of MSDART.DLL that does not contain the needed entry points, apparently.

The MS technical support representative spoke very slowly and said a lot of inappropriate things. I think it a big company like Microsoft could give its employees a better grade of weed.

After you have this problem with SP2, if you fix SP2 while it is running by copying the new version of MSDART.DLL, you MUST load SP2 again. Otherwise some users may have inoperative icons. Very weirder.

If you use the words "Microsoft" and "Quality" in the same sentence, does God strike you dead? Apparently not.

You can call Microsoft about SP2: Call 1-800-936-5700. Choose 1. Wait until the recorded message gets through trying to get you to go elsewhere and press 5. It was free for me, at least. The two support representatives to whom I talked did not help me. However, they were pleasant and conceivably might help reduce a feeling of loneliness.

Other issues:

SP2 may not be able to run on an infected system. Run virus checkers and spyware checkers before trying to load Windows XP SP2. I recommend Grisoft's AVG free personal virus checker.

For spyware removal, run both the free AdAware Personal and the free Spybot Search and Destroy. One may find things the other doesn't.

Virus Checkers: Disable virus checkers and non-SP2-aware software firewalls while loading SP2.

ZoneAlarm software firewall: Upgrade to the latest version of ZoneAlarm, if you use it, before trying to install SP2. Disable the Windows firewall; ZoneAlarm Pro provides much better security. For example, ZoneAlarm Pro renames the file name extensions of attachments that have file name extensions that signify an executable file. There are 44 of those, if I remember correctly. ZoneAlarm provides outgoing protection, as well as incoming protection; the firewall in SP2 provides only incoming protection.

Disable harassments. After you load SP2, there are two new entries in Control Panel: Windows Firewall and Security Center. Go to Security Center/ Change the Way Security Center alerts me/ to disable the messages that haras

Norton was just as bad.

Lots of pretty animated graphics to keep me entertained while the minutes go by - while I am chomping on the bit because I have work to do.

I have had my best luck with Grisoft AVP products so far. They have the free evaluation version here .

You know, I am so happy I kept all my DOS based DSP analysis, schematic-capture, circuit simulator, and PCB layout programs - as I do most of my work there, and have no worry about one day having some stupid marketing attempt ruin all my data files or access to them. Since the libraries on the older ones are user-modifiable and the stuff was all written in C/C++, if the program has anything I need to change, well, no big deal.

Yeh, I know, I wouldn't be able to get away with this in a large company.

Norton was just as bad.

Lots of pretty animated graphics to keep me entertained while the minutes go by - while I am chomping on the bit because I have work to do.

I have had my best luck with Grisoft AVP products so far. They have the free evaluation version here .

You know, I am so happy I kept all my DOS based DSP analysis, schematic-capture, circuit simulator, and PCB layout programs - as I do most of my work there, and have no worry about one day having some stupid marketing attempt ruin all my data files or access to them. Since the libraries on the older ones are user-modifiable and the stuff was all written in C/C++, if the program has anything I need to change, well, no big deal.

Yeh, I know, I wouldn't be able to get away with this in a large company.

AVG Antivirus is a great alternative to Symantec's Norton AntiVirus.

It's free for home users, has a memory-resident scanner, scheduled updates, limited scheduled scans and doesn't bog down your system with unnecessary crap like the Norton or Mcafee anti-virus programs.

I'd have to recommend AVG. It's free for home use, and so are the (daily) virus definitions. You can set it up to download the latest definitions and do a full scan at any time of day. It comes with some more advanced stuff, like inbound/outbound email scanning, which I've disabled but some folks might like.

AVG works pretty well, i've found. I used it on all the machines that came in when I used to work at a computer shop and it caught pretty much all of them.

I run it on my windows systems at home, too.
So consider this as another vote for AVG. :)

You should probably also consider a firewall, there are couple of free ones out there, including Zone Alarm and so on.

Also try the no cost version of Zone Alarm.

These are basic and no cost bits of software I run on my parents machines (and Firefox ;-) ... Though I'd love to buy them a mac one day :)

Here is the link to their free version This works well, and is completely free for personal use.

Get some coffee....here for it

ok if you run windows you need a virus checker

are you a home user ?
if so

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

and get avg for free
Now you need a firewall

http://www.free-firewall.org/

then I would advice get rid of spyware with spybot
donate something to the project if you like it...

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/


regards

John Jones

Oh yeah, click here </a> for a free antivirus app

Most likely your email address is getting used as the return address and little more - the returned mail thing affects everyone to some degree. If you were being used as a spam zombie, you'd probably not notice any change in returned mails, as the zombies generally use someone else's address again as the return addy. I'm fairly sure the return addresses aren't always randomised, as on my domains I see a bucketload of spam all from the same email address, so whoever lives there must be getting a bucketful of bounces.

Still, you really should get an antivirus solution to ease your worries. I use AVG from Grisoft, which is available in a free edition.

Of course, the bounces are plain annoying - when I get ACTUAL bounces from mail I send, I often delete them based on subject line, not realising that the person I was trying to contact is none the wiser. Booo

Windoze 9x/ME/2000/XP PC + New high speed cable connection + No firewall + No anti-spyware + No anti-virus + Kazza = The Killer CombinationTM!

Seriously folks, get yourself a decent firewall, don't trust Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP, get anti-virus, get Spybot, and DITCH IE!

Secure IE against ActiveX/JavaScript/VBScript/IFRAME exploits

Stop the 'unblockable' Messenger service

To further minimize the possibility of malware invading your system, use antivirus and firewall products. I use:

AVG antivirus by Grisoft.
Sysclean by Trend Micro
Outpost Firewall by Agnitum.

Filter spam/malware out of your email. I use CF13-POP3(TM). It is a freeware program I wrote to crush the email spam/malware menace. It is very effective.

A companion shareware program I wrote at the above URL is an all-in-one software mail server that makes it pratically impossible to accept and deliver email spam/malware.

If you have to use windows, get an antivirus program that does not suck like Computer Associate's Etrust which is what I use, or try the free one from AVG .

I have never been infected by any of these viruses and I feel like (at least compaired to the people I know) very lucky.

One of my friends was told by his PC company to do a full format and re-install windows when all that would have been needed was for him to Download Grisoft's AVG

I really feel sorry for the countless hundreds of people who must have been told by advisors to do that same.

This popped up six windows which installed both the default-homepage-network hijacker and also some nasty stuff [...]

This crashed Windows Media Player and then it was overwritten with a small windows executable (I have it if you want it) - this was called wmplayer.exe and was in the Windows Media Player folder. The real Windows Media Player had been deleted. [...]

The next time a WMP media file was accessed the new wmplayer.exe file ran and installed lots of adware, junkware, spyware etc, etc. [...]

AVG free edition sygate personal firewall and Spybot seach and destroy (site down) will complete your collection nicely. Might want to have a look at Hijack this and this tutorial as well.

Yes, this is a lot of work for the price of keeping windows running. Some people don't have a choice... Me, as soon as my favourite IDE gets ported to Linux, I'll swap ;-)

Seriously though, if there are any other tools you guys use to try and keep windows secure, please share.