Very excited. All the parts for my new fast ‘n’ zoomy computer are about to be delivered, and I’m scheduled to have my new DSL account activated next week.
So up to this point, I’ve been working from a computer I bought in '99, Windows 98SE, dial-up internet connection. Security, for the most part, wasn’t that important, as I did all my “sensitive” internetting on my work computer, using the bleeding slow one for SDMB browsing, etc.
Now with my new ultra-quick fast DSL, however, and my new hip computer, I’m very interested in keeping it nice and tight.
I’ll be running Win XP Professional and downloading Mozilla quick as a bunny. Anyone have any suggestions as to what else I’ll want? McAfee? Norton? Where can I get a firewall (or will I even need one)?
I have no firewall suggestions, but would recommend Firefox over Mozilla simply because it is developed more frequently.
From there we have the following misc. items:
AVG Virus Scan, basically the best anti-virus program I have come across, freeware or not
Spybot S&D, basically the best anti-spyware program on the market
Ad-Aware, basically the best anti-adware software available.
Of course, get freeware versions of all the above. Also, let me know if I can do anything else. I’ve got a limited computer understanding and may be able to help.
Make sure you install XP with a slipstreamed copy of SP2. Or don’t connect your machine to your broadband connection before installing SP2 or a firewall.
Utilities you need as a bare minimum:
[ul]
[li] A firewall (ZoneAlarm is about the best, but MS’s is fine to start)[/li][li] Antivirus [/li][li] Spyware utlility (Adaware, Spybot, etc)[/li][/ul]
As an ‘experiment’, I’ve been running XP fully updated, fully firewalled, with no antivirus software. Nothing untoward to report.
As I say, it’s an experiment - I’m fully backed-up and am quite happy to spend time reinstalling (which I do fairly frequently anyway). But the reality is that true viruses are little threat any more.
Warning: as of this date, Spybot S & D will misidentify F-Secure’s updating utility as spyware (as Backweb Lite) and delete it, completely disabling the update functionality of F-Secure. And rolling back the System Restore does not result in valid Backweb registry entries, so the only fix is to reinstall F-Secure… (F-Secure is antivirus software)
~
As others have suggested, make sure that XP is fully patched and you should install new patches as they become available. The simplest thing is to enable Automatic Updates. Zone Alarm is a good, free firewall. Microsoft has a good, free anti-spyware program called Windows AntiSpyware. And use Firefox instead of IE.
Make sure you have SP2 installed. It should be already installed with a new computer. Make sure the Windows firewall is on as well. That firewall is pretty good at stopping outside attacks, but it’s worthless on call-home programs, so you’ll want something like ZoneAlarm as well. Run Microsoft’s spyware program, Ad-Aware, Spybot (probably with TeaTimer installed as well), and SpywareBlaster. SpywareBlaster will blacklist a lot of spyware and make sure you run Spybot’s blacklist as well. Microsoft’s program will also run in residency and act similar to TeaTimer. I had problems with AVG, but that might have been an effect of my old system.
Microsoft finally pretty much got it right with Outlook 2003. Anything earlier than that and I’d be running Thunderbird, but with Outlook 2003 available I run that, since it came with the rest of Office 2003.
Whoa. Whole bunch of suggestions here. Good times. Thanks folks!
Should’ve mentioned that I’d be getting AdAware and SpyBot (already have them on the old computer, even).
I’m gonna print this out and make a list. Off the top of my head, though:
Firefox rather than Mozilla: check
ZoneAlarm: check
AVG: check (my stuff’s all new, so hopefully no problems there).
TeaTimer: check (what’s that?)
SP2: check
Something I forgot to mention:
I knew that both were just magnets for nasties. What should I get instead? Can I download anything (Eudora?), or can I pick something up somewhere?
I’ve had no trouble with Outlook, but if I wanted to switch I’d probably fo with Thunderbird, from the folks who made the fine Firefox browser (which I do use).
TeaTimer is included in Spybot Search & Destroy. It tracks changes to the registry, so that if something tries to change the registry when you aren’t doing anything (like purposely installing a program or changing Startup values), you can block it.
I prefer Zonealarm to Microsoft’s firewall. Don’t run more than one firewall at a time.
Unless there is a setting I don’t know about, the free versions of Ad-Aware and Spybot both need to be updated and run manually.
I use Mozilla’s Thunderbird as an alternative to Outlook Express. I’ve never tried Eudora.
You haven’t mentioned using a router in your setup. I would advise getting one because it is yet another layer of protection and you will not need to run the connection software that comes with the DSL provider.
A router / NAT (network address translator) is not only a good idea security wise, but (most) also allow you to hook up miltiple computers to the same DSL modem.
