OT more than virus protection

Karl, you're going to get a lot of answers to this one.

There are two programs I would suggest:

Spybot - run this once in a blue moon

program will look for malware and things that some sites and programs like to sneak onto your computer.

ToniArts - again, run occasionally. Do NOT tell it to "delete all" when it looks for duplicate files, it will, and you will be reloading the computer.

They are both fairly light weight programs. Spybot can be set to tell you if any programs are trying to load on your computer, before they load anything in the registry.

in addition to AV software, set email to read as text, not HTML, and if your OS permits (you didn't say what OS), lock it down so there is only one ADMIN account that you don't use for normal operation - keep the user privileges set to prevent installing software, etc.

I like AdAware, but I haven't checked on how the pundits feel about it now, and for windows boxes, CCleaner can really help find junk and get rid of it

Spybot , as DanG suggested . I also run AdAware , and keep the registry cleaned up and optimized with a Sammsoft program called Advanced Registry Optomizer - the only program I actually bought , the rest are freeware . I also use Windows Defender , but prefer Avast! antivirus over AVG . I had problems with keeping updated with AVG . Manually updating 6 or 7 comps every couple of days gets tiresome .

I have AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, CCleaner, ZoneAlarm and the XP firewall on various machines. Normally only AVG and a firewall are active, the others scan on demand. AVG's 'Resident Shield' and Spybot's 'TeaTimer' sometimes load down the CPU when they periodically rescan, ZoneAlarm and TeaTimer can be intrusive while updating programs. I run Sysinternals Process Explorer minimized and leave the machine alone for a while when it shows the CPU fully occupied.

The dealer and network administrator who sold me my latest used laptop installed AVG and CCleaner, and told me Spybot and Ad-Aware weren't necessary. OTOH they have found tracking cookies etc that AVG missed, and I've found stuff they all missed with HiJackThis and by examining \Local Settings\Cookies and \Temporary Internet Files. For example AVG put tracking cookies in the Privacy>Managed websites list but didn't remove them from \Cookies.

As an extra precaution I browse from a limited user account except to update software. Knocking on wood, I've only seen a few tracking cookies and maybe a potential trojan this whole year. I back up the whole hard disk with free Seagate Disk Wizard before and after installing new programs and if the hard disk becomes infected (or I mess up) I can easily restore a backup.

jsw

Linux...any flavor.

bill

aaahhh , if you REALLY want to see office productivity come to a screeching halt, install linux and ask a non-computer savy person to make a quick powerpoint slide or two - or send them a MS Word file with an embedded excel object and ask them to redo the chart with the latest sales figues.

There is nothing wrong with Linux, but it isn't ready for the masses because the masses don't know how to use it. I figure I'm reasonably computer literate and the last time I installed linux seriously, it took me several months of working with a guy who worked for me and is one of the more brilliant Unix sysAdmins I've met and a real Linux bigot before I could do simple things like print through my print server consistantly. And, when I sent an Open Office presentation with a simple graphic to the printer, it took 45 minutes to print, compared to about 6 seconds from MS Powerpoint (because microsoft sent an image, and OpenOffice sent a 100 megabyte postscript file full of vectors to form the simple torus I selected as my test graphic. Now, this was a couple of years ago, I haven't tried it since for general office work - why bother - it is not more secure than the newer MS products and it is far less "self administring"

It does Linux and the open source movement no good to recommend it to those who can't handle it, or to push it to where it really isn't yet ready to go.

========= While not a freebee and for M/S, I like the Iolo System Pro package. It is a complete PC maintenance package and includes an antivirus. It will also optimize your registries where much of the slowdown occurs and it will allow to do many windows tweaks. I highly recommend it. You can run on 3 computers from one package.

see

They also have sales and you can try see if you can get a discount.

Free download of program with limited life to see how you like it.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Keyboard locks?

I would disagree. Slackware or Debian might not be as "user-friendly" to the Windroid as something more like one of the Ubuntus, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, etc.

Someone who has never run a computer before will probably be able to figure out OpenOffice Impress quicker than M$ PowerPoint.

Someone who's never seen a computer will likely be able to figure it out in Linux quicker than in Windows.

The masses didn't know how to use Windows either... until they learned it.

The computer did what it was configured to do. Try to print out a postscript file in Windows. I had a PS file I needed to print on Windows once. It wasn't so user-friendly as you'd think.

Why all the discussion about AVG, Norton, and all these monitoring programs then? You don't need all that crap in the Linux world. Matter of fact 99.9% of what you need is in the distribution itself or in its repository.

Anyone capable of learning Windows is capable of learning Linux. IOW, a luser can function at the same level of incompetency on Kubuntu as on XP or Vista.

Try Xandros Linux one of these days on a spare box. Almost Windows...kinda sorta. And Linux these days will run a lot of Windows software using Wine etc etc as an translator.

Gunner

"IMHO, some people here give Jeff far more attention than he deserves, but obviously craves. The most appropriate response, and perhaps the cruelest, IMO, is to simply killfile and ignore him. An alternative, if you must, would be to post the same standard reply to his every post, listing the manifold reasons why he ought to be ignored. Just my $0.02 worth."

I happen to need this on three computers. Looks like a fair deal if there's not a huge annual fee for virus. I'm not seeing what the annual charge is. Do you know?

Karl

========= available on their site but hidden pretty well $19.95 per year on sale see

generally also get an update to the latest inclusive package [I suggest the system mechanic pro currently 9.0.5] when you renew.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Actually antivirus slows down computers.

Since I'm the only one using my computers, I don't run antivirus software. I do run spybot though.

False positives are a b*tch, seems like one antivirus went nutz recently and wiped out windows files.

I keep everything patched and also hide behind my router. No uPNP!

Wes

Karl - I just bought a 3 computer license for Norton Internet Security 2010 with 3 year support for $12.45 on ebay - the seller sends you a code good for 3 installs. Norton is one of the bigger (arguably better) of the breed, so at $4.113 per computer, or just over a buck and a quarter per year how can you go wrong?

Spybot, and Malwarebytes.

Steve R.

By installing Norton...the absolutely worst bit of software shit ever posted.

And I include this....

"IMHO, some people here give Jeff far more attention than he deserves, but obviously craves. The most appropriate response, and perhaps the cruelest, IMO, is to simply killfile and ignore him. An alternative, if you must, would be to post the same standard reply to his every post, listing the manifold reasons why he ought to be ignored. Just my $0.02 worth."

I'm dual booting Linux Mint and xp. Mint is way faster but I haven't been able to get the correct video drivers to install and have some problems with jerkiness in fullscreen video. Karl

I'm fairly familiar with PC hardware and Windows administration and have used a Mac and a Solaris workstation for close to 10 years, though they were IT supported and I didn't have to dig in as deep. Right now I'm measuring CPU speed (800MHz) and total power consumption (14-16W) to understand how to extend battery life on this laptop.

Ubuntu and Knoppix are throwbacks to Plug and Pray on the second-hand office PCs I have at home and have to maintain at work. Perhaps if you have or buy the proper hardware they are fine but not with whatever happens to be installed, especially dialup Winmodems. And yes, I know about sourceforge, linmodems.org and the Dell drivers. I finally bought an external serial modem to try with Ubuntu, but haven't yet because XP and 2000 work very well for me.

Sometimes I work for recently graduated engineers who are still hot for Unix. It's funny in a sad way to see them try to snow me with it and then get mad when I type commands and switches they don't know.

jsw

I forgot to mention the useful site I've been viewing while checking power demand:

jsw