A group of softwares, choose only one - Version 2 [Archive]

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 01:17 AM

Hi,
You say AVG stinks, it's like saying Golf stinks because Ferarri F50 is so much better. Especially since you can have your Golf for free.
Now, you say much better - in what terms exactly? If you tell me, I have been online for 4 years, used AVG for 2 years, had 3-4 major infections, then without changing my surfing habits, I switched to a better AV and they helped stop those infections AVG was previously incapable of even detecting, then I could say you're right, in your personal experience, AVG stinks.
But ...
Is this the case? Or you tell me online comparatives are your only argument?
In my personal experience, av is a nice-to-have, but I never had it alert to anything, be it mail, browsing or downloaded files. I can tell you, I use AVG. And I use on-demand scans with 5-6 others anti-virii, and they too find the exact same amount of viruses like AVG - 0. Is BitDefender, Clam, Dr.Web, Kaspersky, and Antivir good enough backup for you? And they return the same results as AVG. So why is AVG so bad?
People like to throw words 'software rocks' and 'software sucks' casually. For instance, I would never bash Norton products, if I did not have experience with it. Friends, who using Norton got infected whereas alternative avs helped detect and remove the infections. But I do not hate Norton because they are a big brother company. The same way, I have no opinion about PCcillin or Panda or similiar, because I have had no experience with those, and as such, my bias is at its resting balance.
In several threads, I asked people how many virii they helped stop dead with their products - very few people answered, with answers being - zero. I do not talk about people for whom security is hobby and they deliberately infect themselves. I'm talking casual day-to-day use of the computer. How many people had their av popup and scream? How often?
There's lots of malware out there, but in 90% of cases people infect themselves. They do the crucial download, click, execute. Very few things happen by themselves.
Now, tell me honestly - how long have you been online? How many virus infections did you have, what products were you using at that time etc.
Mrk

zapjb

February 6th, 2006, 02:21 AM

@Mrkvonic 1st I am enjoying your topics. Thank you.
But to address your last post. I agree with hollywoodpc. Ime AVG is a toy compared to Avast.
{QUOTE-> ...In my personal experience, av is a nice-to-have, but I never had it alert to anything, be it mail, browsing or downloaded files.... <-QUOTE}
I've had both NOD32 & KAV alert to virii & trojans. When I had either running resident. Also in some cases these 2 AV's cancelled, deleted, or stopped & or alerted on virii & trojans.
Oh & ime on computers running AVG, making sure of the settings, updated & running a full scan. Then uninstalling AVG & installing Avast. Making sure of the settings, updated & running a full scan. Avast would find multiple nasties that AVG missed. Oh & in these boxes AVG usually consumes more resources than Avast. And not one compartive AV test online that I've seen rated AVG ahead of Avast.

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 03:28 AM

Hi,
Then I'm either incredible lucky, wise or stupid. Because I never found any nasty with any av you can imagine. And never did AVG let me down. Maybe I live in my little bubble of innocent happiness. Still, with massive amounts of porn I download, p2p, gaming, whatnot, I never had any software ever give one sign of life... Oh yes, MSAS did alert me when I inserted a new network card. And Ad-Aware found ONE tracking cookie. And Ewido found FOUR tracking cookies.
So, what am I - lucky, wise or stupid?
Mrk

zapjb

February 6th, 2006, 04:05 AM

From what you said. I'd say MSAS & ewido & luck have saved you. But, maybe I missed you saying this. Have you scanned using online scans such as Trend Micro, Symantec, Bitdefender, eTrust or McAfee FreeScan? Maybe you are infected?

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 04:38 AM

Hi,
I'm sorry but you completely missed my point.
I'm saying that despite my heavy interest in 'dodgy' stuff, all I ever come up with is COOKIES. Not because malware does not exist. It just does not wanna mess with me. I'm being polite, malware's being polite, we keep distance.
Nothing saved me, because there is nothing to save.
Infected is a broad word, because I use 5-10 computers at 3 different places.
And still, I'm not infected. I don't need scanners. I just know.
I do once in a while, for the sake of fun, run 1,223 different scanners. But I'm telling you, from my experience, you don't need anything, maybe a firewall and a good browser - firefox.
So what I'm doing differently that you get hit with malware, and I don't?
Back to original question - am I lucky, wise or stupid?
Mrk

P.S. Oh sorry, I do once in a while find FPs. And after software updates, they are corrected.

Milken

February 6th, 2006, 04:52 AM

Selection 1, LOLOLOL that's ridiculous, Windows firewall AND Internet Explorer, spyware blaster is a good add on for IE

Selection 2 Proxim does ALOT but I'm not that familiar with it.

Selection 3 Well, Opera and Netveda seals the deal. Opera is the toughest to exploit, not alot of code written for it. Netveda can atleast close all ports, provides inbound and outbound protection, it also has some trojan, backdoor blocking.

I'll take 3, 2 is very close because it has AVG instead of Ewido. I'd rather have a safer browser than virus protection.

2 or 3 is doable, 1 LOLOLOL

zapjb

February 6th, 2006, 04:56 AM

Maybe I go to "dodgier sites. I know thats not a real word.;D

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 04:58 AM

Hi,
Here's my reasoning for the choices:
1 - No go, it's got IE.
2-3 - which one to choose, I'd say 2.
Reason - Jetico has a powerful application control. Proxomitron + Firefox with extension cleans the browsed pages like Hellfire. AVG will in that nature provide more protection, as you will scan downloaded files mainly for viruses and some trojans, but Ewido and PestPatrol will mainly catch trojans and very few viruses. In general, the competition is close between AVG vs Ewido in those terms, but Firefox is more tweakable than Opera and Jetico is more powerful than Netveda. But still, both reasonable choices for everyday users.
Keep on, lads.
Mrk

sweater

February 6th, 2006, 05:58 AM

Pls forgive me joe, but my answer could be...None of the above. ;D

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 06:51 AM

Hi,
You are not forgiven.
You must choose one of the stated. It's that or 3 years penalty of using 14.4k dialup on unpatched windows me - what do you choose?
Mrk

BlueZannetti

February 6th, 2006, 07:24 AM

{QUOTE-> It's that or 3 years penalty of using 14.4k dialup on unpatched windows me - what do you choose?
Mrk <-QUOTE}Mrk,

That's cold, have a little mercy! At least a slower dsl line....

I'd go with option 1, with complete order of preference being 1, 3, then 2. My rationale is that KAV 6.0 is quite a bit more than a standard AV with the new proactive detection module, so you get heavy duty coverage up front. ICS is enough to tame unsolicited inbound threats. Spywareblaster plugs the most obvious IE issues. Not a package I'd opt for if allowed to design from the start, but close to some I use.

Blue

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 07:48 AM

Hi,
Thast's not cold. You want cold?
Cold is using AOL browser on 14.4k dialup on unpatched windows me. That's cold, with 14" CRT screen set on 60Hz refresh rate at 5900K color depth.
Could you give reasons why 3 and 2 come second and third?
Mrk

Devil's Advocate

February 6th, 2006, 09:10 AM

LOL. Blue is kind of cheating by specifying KAV 6 and then talking about ICS. You might as well say you have a hardware firewall while you are at it.

Anyhow, I don't mind either 1,2,3

Personally I think whether you pick 1,2,3 depends on your subjective assessment of which risks are more likely.

If I pick 1, it means I'm not worried about IE problems. I'm confident of setting up IE tightly, and discount the probability of zero day exploits targetting IE. I'm also am confident in Windows firewall to bound inbound, or I cheat like Blue by saying I'm shielded within a network. I don't have any outbound protection, but hopefully, KAV will keep malware from being installed in the first place so it doesn't matter anyway.

In this setup, I'm not too sure about the point of spywareblaster, since i will probably turn off activex anyway, but it doesnt hurt if they find someway to worm into my trusted zone.

Pick 2, seems to focus on browser related exploits. Firefox is solid enough and add proxomitron and browser based exploits almost cannot happen. The weak point however is from self installs of malware (say in warez or cracks) or adware bundles.

The latter might possibly be caught by AVG because some are pretty wide spread, the former probably not.

Moreover If one is in the habit of downloading warez and cracks, on top of lacking 'common sense', AVG probably cannot keep up. In such a case, you can probably mitigate this by online scanning at Jotti's etc (is this cheating?).

If that should fail Setup 2's Firewall is pretty powerful, so it can possibly catch run of the mill malware 'phoning home' by catching memory injections and whatnots.. But it still might be too little too late..

Pick 3 is a mixed bunch. Opera itself means like 2) driveby downloads and exploits are very unlikely.

In additional there seems to be overkill against adware type programs, because between Ewido (a top notch antispyware i found based on experiences of friends who use it to clean up such nasties) , ad-aware&spybot and pest patrol, not much can get through in that area.

Ewido and Pest patrol in addition claim protection against more blackhackerish malware like rootkits, keyloggers, backdoors etc hidden in trojans.

So what isn't covered? Worms perhaps? But it states on Ewido's homepage that they cover worms too.

If we believe all that the only class of malware they don't cover is viruses. But viruses or at least file infectors are pretty rare these days and most antiviruses, are really covering worms....

In any case, I suspect, despite what Ewido says, their weak point is likely to be common fast spreading worms send through email. So they bloody suck if tested against the wildlist. But who knows?

If my analysis is correct, I would choose this setup, if I wasn't worried about worms. E.g I use a solid email client, and i never ever open attachments without confirming it with the sender

So which do I pick in the end? Probably 2. Then 3 , then 1.

I would pick 3) if my analysis of Ewido's capabilities is correct, but since it's just a guess, it's probably safer to go with 2) and be extra careful with downloads.

1) is perfectly okay really, objectively I know a properly secured hardened IE browser is almost as solid as firefox/opera as many people have shown, but for some reason I can't shake the unreasonable fear that IE is just less safe.

Mrkvonic

February 6th, 2006, 09:34 AM

Hi,
Nice one, devil. You don't get the 14.4k punishment.
Mrk

Devil's Advocate

February 6th, 2006, 09:55 AM

I think this is an interesting exercise because it forces people to think exactly what areas of vulnerability they are more afraid of . Are you more afraid of getting killed by a browser exploit/driveby download? Or do you fear, some nastie hidden in the program you downloaded and installed?

E.g Mrkvonic like me probably has a slightly overblown fear of IE problems. While Blue doesn't fear this area as much being a IE user.

Mrkvonic isn't as worried about downloads and hence doesnt need a top notich AV, because he doesn't download illegal programs.

Still Mrkvonic, I can see the idea of tradeoffs for setup 1 and 2.

But what was the point of setup 3?

A kneejerk reaction (as in hollywood's post #4) would be to dismiss 3, despite the amount of firepower in the scanner section, good browser, good firewall because there isn't a AV.

But what does that really mean?

The perception of Ewido is mainly that of a anti-trojan one that handles rootkits, backdoors, some kinds of keyloggers and darker side of trojans.

But from reactions from people who use the product to rid themselves of adware/spyware I also know Ewido is actually a top notch, spyware/adware remover (Spyaxe, CWS etc) perhaps even better than ad-aware. Boclean I hear is also equally good in this respect.

According to Ewido's website, they cover also Worms. So what exactly does a Antivirus cover that Ewido does not?

Viruses? But viruses are rare these days. Most of the wildlist are worms (or at least classed as worms)!

I'm so confused. If AVs are starting to cover trojans, perhaps software we perceive as ATs are covering traditional AV ground as well? For sure, they cover the ground of ad-aware, spybot...

Perhaps that's why Ewido is called Antimalware suite....

RobZee

February 6th, 2006, 10:18 AM

{QUOTE-> Maybe I go to "dodgier sites. I know thats not a real word.;D <-QUOTE}
For the record.........

dodgy
adj dodgier, dodgiest

colloq:
1. Difficult or risky.
2. Untrustworthy; dishonest, or dishonestly obtained.
3. Unstable; slightly broken.

Etymology: 19c.

FluxGFX

February 6th, 2006, 10:45 AM

Hi Mrkvonic,

I would have to go with #2:

Jetico firewall
AVG anti-virus
Proxomitron web filter
Firefox browser

As it's the one that makes most sens. (Not up for debate this is base of the available options) why?

Well as much as Jetico is not the best thing theres is in a firewall you can have descent protection with low mem usage/cpu and still perform great. It has descent configuration that if in the proper hands you can tight it up and be more at ease over the internet.

Now AVG anto-virus is free (but not all free av's are good) although this one is doing great for the middle man and can keep the nasty things at bay. Now an AV is not for worms, trojan, spyware and the likes it's againts viruses, anything beyond that is an added bonuses. As every software there's on the market each of them have their own quirks.

Proxomitron web filter is a great web filetering tool, setup correctly it can be the best thing for filtering and surfing online without to wonder if you'll get infected by those so called Java/Script/ActiveX content that can be found, do note that this is just one layer and alone it can't stop everything and YES it's possible to still get infected with something.

FireFox is also a light program to run for web browsing it is an alternative to IE which owns pretty much the market. But also like all application getting popular attention you are bound to find that even FF is the target of Java Exploit, buffer exploit, parsing and such so thereof you can find extensions that can help you such as AdBlock/Noscript etc...

Now this defines my choice for #2.

Peter2150

February 6th, 2006, 04:57 PM

Hi Mrkvonic

Again I have to ask. What is the point of this? There are an infinite number of combinations that can work. It depends on need, the computer, the personality. Why should one even bother with what at best is a mind game. Please explain.

Pete

BlueZannetti

February 6th, 2006, 05:25 PM

{QUOTE-> Hi,
Thast's not cold. You want cold?
Cold is using AOL browser on 14.4k dialup on unpatched windows me. That's cold, with 14" CRT screen set on 60Hz refresh rate at 5900K color depth. <-QUOTE}Ouch! I'll pass on the punishment for now.... :)
{QUOTE-> Could you give reasons why 3 and 2 come second and third?
Mrk <-QUOTE}For my own purposes, I tend to treat decent software firewalls as fairly interchangable. I don't set up complex rule sets, don't pour over logs, and tend to use them myself only for application based outbound control at the application is allowed or disallowed level. Thus for 2 & 3, I ignored the firewalls as a discriminator.

Although we don't tend to approach Ewido as a top level general antimalware program (say to replace a general AV package...), I do believe that it will function as well to better in that role than AVG. This is a somewhat gut level feel on my part based on using Ewido (sans Guard) for some time as a periodic check. With the Guard active, it should stop what worries me most - trojan downloaders/droppers. It also has process memory and registry scanning capabilities rounding out things. In my opinion it is a very powerful package. Opera is a solid browser, while AdAware/Spybot/Past Patrol are there if needed. If I want to push things I can run PestPatrol full on and suffer the false positives, but I'd probably use AdAware/Spybot/Past Patrol as demand scanners.

I relegated 2 to third place due to AVG as the prime AV. I realize that Proxomitron is present and a bit of a wildcard. In the end, I went with that placing since I don't use Proxomitron and would be relying solely on third party impressions for weighing it's impact.

Blue

The Hammer

February 6th, 2006, 07:33 PM

{QUOTE->

And still, I'm not infected. I don't need scanners. I just know.
But I'm telling you, from my experience, you don't need anything, maybe a firewall and a good browser - firefox.
So what I'm doing differently that you get hit with malware, and I don't?
Back to original question - am I lucky, wise or stupid?
Mrk

P.S. Oh sorry, I do once in a while find FPs. And after software updates, they are corrected. <-QUOTE}My choice would be #1 and to answer your other question you must have horse shoes up your but and wise can be eliminated if the quote above is serious.

BlueZannetti

February 6th, 2006, 08:36 PM

{QUOTE-> There are an infinite number of combinations that can work. It depends on need, the computer, the personality. <-QUOTE}Pete,

You forgot two of the most important dependencies - user knowledge and experience. Knowledge and experience to understand what is occurring and how to remedy the situation. These are independent of the others mentioned and critical in determining the appropriate path, especially with respect to the general direction of this thread.

Blue

Mrkvonic

February 7th, 2006, 05:02 AM

Hi,

@Peter, answering a post is voluntary. If you don't like you, you need not answer. As to purpose, I want to see how people think, and what they fear.

@Hammer, the prose was lost on me. What did you mean by horseshoe up the butt?

Mrk

sweater

February 7th, 2006, 05:25 AM

{QUOTE-> Hi,
You are not forgiven.
You must choose one of the stated. It's that or 3 years penalty of using 14.4k dialup on unpatched windows me - what do you choose?
Mrk <-QUOTE}

Two of my "bodyguards" softwares were not included in the selections...that is Avast Anti-virus and ProcessGuard. :dry:

I could not live and surf the net using my own pc without these two important softwares I have mentioned above. Avast is an antivirus, anti-worm, also detects some trojans and spywares...very fast updater and upgrades and has lots of features not found on other AV and then ProcessGuard protects my system from stealthy trojans and protects critical programs from being terminated and modified. 8)

Mrkvonic

February 7th, 2006, 06:59 AM

Hi,
What will you do if suddenly both products become incompatible with your pc, for whatever reason. Try to work with me. What happens if you CANNOT use your favorites? Seriously. What would you choose?
Mrk

Devil's Advocate

February 7th, 2006, 07:48 AM

{QUOTE-> My choice would be #1 and to answer your other question you must have horse shoes up your but and wise can be eliminated if the quote above is serious. <-QUOTE}

Of course his quote is serious. It's the same for me really.

Oh sure, i surf to some site, and some av will tell me the site has some dangerous thingie. But even without the AV, the dangerous thingie is still inert in my cache.

Oh the email scanner blocks some dangerous attachment filled with the latest whizbang worm, again, harmless, since it's damn obvious what it is.

Perhaps The hammer you could tell us the last time AV really saved your butt. :)

Mrkvonic

February 7th, 2006, 08:19 AM

Hi,
Devil and me in agreement, impossible!
Anyhow, i understand the farrier (re horseshoe) thingy now. Talisman of luck, oh me! I did not know we put it there!
For browsing I usually use Proxomitron (not always) + Firefox with noscript (java, flash and some other plugins forbidden), adblock, flashblock, spoofstick, block cookies, referrer, agent switcher and some more - and before things ever reach AV, they are filtered away.
Peter, if you tell me you download things like mad, and your av pops all the time saying I'm saving your horseshoe, I'm saving your horseshoe, then you seriously need to revisit thy surfing habits.
Mrk

Devil's Advocate

February 7th, 2006, 08:44 AM

{QUOTE-> Hi,
For browsing I usually use Proxomitron (not always) + Firefox with noscript (java, flash and some other plugins forbidden), adblock, flashblock, spoofstick, block cookies, referrer, agent switcher and some more - and before things ever reach AV, they are filtered away.
Mrk <-QUOTE}

Wow that sounds paranoid. When was the last time any of these extensions saved your butt?

Mrkvonic, if you tell me you are visiting bad sites like mad, and your extension+proxo pops all the time saying I'm saving your horseshoe, I'm saving your horseshoe, then you seriously need to revisit thy surfing habits

Mrkvonic

February 7th, 2006, 09:40 AM

Hi,
Truth to be told, I cannot say what is filtered and what is not. I don't know. It's rather quiet.
But look at this from this perspective: firefox extensions are 10-30kb, a whooping 20 extensions weigh <1Mb and firefox runs as before (cpu and such usage). Primarily, these extensions allow you to customize your browsing to your liking, and clean the pages from crap. Luckily, they are also secure.
When I visit a page, I don't wanna see flash movies, ads and such. I just want clean content, regardless of the site's nature. So I use the relevant extensions for that purpose. And then, some more, because extensions are fun, like tab mix plus, customize google, ie view, ie tab etc...
But conceptually, noscript + adblock will clean 99% of available crap. If you don't wanna see flash movies - flashblock. If you don't like cookies - block cookies. If you don't want certain sites to earn money from your clicks - referrer control. If you wanna play with browser header - user agent switcher.
No paranoia really - more of a fetish.
Mrk

P.S. I also have a computer that runs naked firefox, firewall and browser only. I have a comp without firewall and only nat/ics. I have a comp with windows firewall and restriction policies only. Do you approve? 'Cause your approval means a lot (quote: Martin Lawrence).

P.S.S. I should not have complimented you, devil, all of a sudden you turned bossy and sassy. You need to be kept in tight reign with a good stout switch.

Devil's Advocate

February 7th, 2006, 11:29 AM

{QUOTE-> Hi,
P.S. I also have a computer that runs naked firefox, firewall and browser only. I have a comp without firewall and only nat/ics. I have a comp with windows firewall and restriction policies only. Do you approve? 'Cause your approval means a lot (quote: Martin Lawrence).
<-QUOTE}

Which movie was that? As for approval, I'm not in the business in giving one, try getting it from Blue, Hollywood, Blackspear etc They are the ones in the business of judging and giving seal of approvals to newbies needing advise for setups.

{QUOTE->
P.S.S. I should not have complimented you, devil, all of a sudden you turned bossy and sassy. You need to be kept in tight reign with a good stout switch. <-QUOTE}

Actually I thought you were being bossy and sassy, that is why I gave you a taste of your own medicine. Feel free to return the favor.

Peter2150

February 7th, 2006, 11:48 AM

{QUOTE-> Pete,

You forgot two of the most important dependencies - user knowledge and experience. Knowledge and experience to understand what is occurring and how to remedy the situation. These are independent of the others mentioned and critical in determining the appropriate path, especially with respect to the general direction of this thread.

Blue <-QUOTE}

Blue you are right on.

@Peter, answering a post is voluntary. If you don't like you, you need not answer. As to purpose, I want to see how people think, and what they fear.

I know I could just stay out, but still am curious.

I accept your statement of purpose at face value, but I just don't understand how limiting to choices of different combo's of 4 packages you chose answers that. Don't misunderstand I am not being critical, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Same way asking if you could only use one program what would it be. It is true this does ask people to rank what they feel is most important, and that is an interesting question, but since we can indeed use more than one, the whole exercise becomes somewhat of a mute point.

Am I missing something?

Pete

AnthonyG

February 7th, 2006, 12:07 PM

Why must you choose options mixed with good software and also useless?.

Is this for your machine then out of that list use.

Kaspersky internet Security [i.e Firewall and Antivirus]
SpywareBlaster
Firefox browserl
And MS Antispyware.

So all you have done is bought 1 application (KIS)

Mrkvonic

February 7th, 2006, 12:25 PM

Hi,
Peter, a bit of imaginative thinking. A bit of fan. Now, lots of good software is disappearing. Sygate, Kerio, TDS-3 - Not the end of the world, especially not in the case of firewall, which can run on for years, but just imagine a very cruel world where you are limited.
BTW, with Windows Vista, this could actually happen. What will you do then? Back to topic, it is NOT a real situation, although it could be. It's a question where you need to analyze your behavior faced with 'tough' choices.
I like to see how people think and what different rationales bring out.
It would easy if I gave you Tiny, PG, Kaspersky, Opera, ShadowUser, wouldn't it? What will you do when you do not have those? Are you saying that your ability to survive the net relies only of heavy weaponry? Isn't there some room for flexibility?

Devil, the movie is Nothing to Lose, with Tim Robbins too. Makes some of his dumbest faces ever.

Mrk

Peter2150

February 7th, 2006, 02:50 PM

Mrk

Okay, I see where you are going, although the last 4 choices wouldn't be any easier for me. In case you are wondering exactly what I run:

Outpost 3.0
Kav 6.0 beta and I don't use this in the most traditional way.
Regdefend/Appdefend
Online Armor
Safe'n'Sec
FDISR if this counts in the category

And yes I keep my options open for just the reason you mentioned.

Cheers

Pete

SpikeyB

February 7th, 2006, 04:50 PM

I would go for option 1.

For me it's a case of which uses the least resources. I think you can make windows and IE safe without needing to add anything.

I could use KAV as an on demand scanner for any dodgy downloads and e-mail attachments.

The Hammer

February 7th, 2006, 05:02 PM

{QUOTE-> Of course his quote is serious. It's the same for me really.

Perhaps The hammer you could tell us the last time AV really saved your butt. :) <-QUOTE}I've had NOD intercept two nasties in 2005 and one in Jan 2006 heuristically via email as it was being downloaded. Also a half dozen by signature again via email in 2005 and one via daily scheduled scan in Jan/06. I'm glad your all having fun with the horseshoe analogy. ;D

BlueZannetti

February 7th, 2006, 06:24 PM

{QUOTE-> As for approval, I'm not in the business in giving one, try getting it from Blue, Hollywood, Blackspear etc They are the ones in the business of judging and giving seal of approvals to newbies needing advise for setups. <-QUOTE}I must defer that I'm not in the business of awarding seals of approval, although I will plead guilty to providing a perspective, occasionally in affirmation, occassionally in disagreement, with someones plans if either that is the direct request or if the configuration is forwarded as a general template. Typically I look for concordance with my own views (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=600687&postcount=9) and approaches (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=352128&postcount=6). I realize that the path I follow is one of many that will work with equal performance, and I do try to reflect that in my comments. While I do continually reassess what I do, change is rather infrequent since I haven't noted glaring holes in the approach to date.

As for the groups of software indicated in this and the previous thread, while none follow the specific template that I tend to adhere to, many should work fine for the majority of users.

What would I do if the proposed scenario occurred? Well..., I'd pretty much stick to my current decision tree. Each step has multiple options if one or more is unavailable, so the substitutions are already known to me. If some of the discrete layers/steps are removed, that's OK as well - they are either back-up or have back-up. With respect to Vista, I won't convert prior to assessing the situation carefully. If I was forced, had no recourse, and was left completely bare, well there's always a Linux Live CD distro to be had, and some work quite well. At least that's how I'd handle the situation in real life.

Blue

WSFuser

February 7th, 2006, 07:46 PM

{QUOTE-> Hi,
What will you do if suddenly both products become incompatible with your pc, for whatever reason. Try to work with me. What happens if you CANNOT use your favorites? Seriously. What would you choose?
Mrk <-QUOTE}
rather then give us packages, u shouldve just asked that question. it much easier that way. for me, in place of nod32, looknstop, and firefox, i would have avast, outpost pro, and mozilla/seamonkey.

nicM

February 7th, 2006, 08:14 PM

hmm :shifty: , restrictive choice here...

I'd go for the second setup: it appears to me as the most balanced of the three, with a good FW, a decent Av, safe browser and a devilish filter.

the first one is security after the facts, Kaspersky compensating weakness of other components, browser anf FW. The third one has two anti-malware, but no AV; Opera is good, but it doesn't prevent you to download bad files yourself ;D ...

But how restrictive... :ouch: , is that Jugement Day scenario??

Cheers,
nicM

Mrkvonic

February 8th, 2006, 01:17 AM

Hi,

TheHammer - are these files the usual Re: document and Re: your file mails with stupid attachments you would never open, or mails that you honestly believed contained genuine content, but turned out to be evil.
I'm talking about out-of-the blue alert. Something you totally did not expect, while browsing or such, and boom - a drive-by-downloaded trojan was stopped from executing.

Nico - This is hardly the Judgment Day scenario. The Judgment day scenario is the following:
You are forced to use AOL Browser with AskJeeves toolbar. OS is Improved Windows ME - ala Vista ME. Bundled OS security is NIS running at 400Mb and 50% CPU. You cannot install anything else because it has not been approved by Big Brother DRM. You cannot install P2P software, and you cannot access sourceforge.net (it's blocked by default in the local host - all communist sites are). The IM of choice is improved MSN messenger that must display at least 20 spam messages.
And finally, the bombon of the whole thing - You can only save your files and folders inside My Documents, My Pictures etc.
Mrk

The Hammer

February 8th, 2006, 06:39 AM

{QUOTE-> Hi,

TheHammer - are these files the usual Re: document and Re: your file mails with stupid attachments you would never open, or mails that you honestly believed contained genuine content, but turned out to be evil.
I'm talking about out-of-the blue alert. Something you totally did not expect, while browsing or such, and boom - a drive-by-downloaded trojan was stopped from executing.

Mrk <-QUOTE}My answer is mail that I believed contained genuine content and I also had one drive-by-download trojan that was stopped from executing. I tend to follow the conventional/generally accepted security practices of which an Av is a required component as I am a non expert user.

nicM

February 8th, 2006, 06:46 PM

{QUOTE->
Nico - This is hardly the Judgment Day scenario. The Judgment day scenario is the following:
You are forced to use AOL Browser with AskJeeves toolbar. OS is Improved Windows ME - ala Vista ME. Bundled OS security is NIS running at 400Mb and 50% CPU. You cannot install anything else because it has not been approved by Big Brother DRM. You cannot install P2P software, and you cannot access sourceforge.net (it's blocked by default in the local host - all communist sites are). The IM of choice is improved MSN messenger that must display at least 20 spam messages.
And finally, the bombon of the whole thing - You can only save your files and folders inside My Documents, My Pictures etc.
Mrk <-QUOTE}

;D

Oh, about P2P, I don't care, I've never used it 8) ;

Looking forward to your next software proposals polls ;)

Cheers,
nicM

Devil's Advocate

February 10th, 2006, 07:21 AM

@Blue - Relax, I was just having some fun at your expense.

{QUOTE-> My answer is mail that I believed contained genuine content and I also had one drive-by-download trojan that was stopped from executing. I tend to follow the conventional/generally accepted security practices of which an Av is a required component as I am a non expert user. <-QUOTE}

Your security must be pretty bad to require your Av to safe you from a drive by download. Are you certain that if you did not have the AV, the driveby download would have worked?

But then again you claim to be a non expert user, so maybe you can't really tell the difference. No offense intended.