What is your security setup these days?

Since you are aware of the security advantages of Chrome OS and Ublock/Umatrix i will not get into those. When you first purchase a device and log into chrome OS, there is an option to opt out of certain "help google services by anonymous usage data collection" or something of that nature. You can also go into google account settings and opt out of targeted ads (ads setting) and help services and tweak the privacy profile and location settings by locking it down to private as much as possible. This in itself stops many IMO phoning home and privacy leaks, as effectively you have told google not to consider you as a product. Whether or not you believe they will respect this is a matter of interpreting the EULA.

In turn as "malwar" uses, ublock and umatrix combination, this in itself is very strong in privacy. It has features like Strict Https, UA Spoofing, Block Cookies from sending out data, Block behind the scene requests. This will prevent many leaks in privacy when using google services, as well as browsing the web generally.

Whether this setup may be as private as say a Windows user that uses Google services? who knows, and im sure it could stir much debate especially when you consider the "cloud"

regards.

 

I've upgraded from Norton Internet Security to Norton Security with Backup.

My current security setup under Windows 10 (until I figure out how to get my Windows 7 partition bootable so I can ditch Windows 10)

Real Time Protection:
Norton Security with Backup

On Demand Scans:
Ad-Aware
Baidu PC Faster

 

There are much better on-demand scanners than those you are using...

 

@siketa Thay may be true for PC Faster as it only uses Baidu's cloud scanning engine, and not Avira like the fill Baidu Antivirus, but Ad-Aware uses Bitdefender's scan engine.

As an update, I just uinstalled Ad-Ware, due to it being too heavy. Despite being installed in compatibility mode where the drivers for real time protection are not installed so that is can be installed alongside other antiviruses, the system tray process was constantly accessing the hard drive, causing my computer to slow down. Of course, while I was not doing a scan, it would be reasonable to expect Ad-Aware to be doing nothing, but, What's my computer doing? confirmed the constant hard drive access.

 

Zemana, MBAM, Hitman, EEK.....the choice is yours, buddy....

 

I've got lifetime licenses for both Zemana and MBAM, was just wanting to try something different.

 

Thank you for your answer as this is very helpful. But although I know of some of ChromeOS security features I am not familiar with ublock or umatrix but they sound very good. But are both of those fairly easy to set up to do those things you mention or do you have to be a sophisticated user for most of it? And are those two apps really all that is needed with ChromeOS or are there other security/privacy apps you would also recommend using with them? Thanks again.

 

Okay, thanks I will just leave it disabled.

 

A new re-entry of an old friend...Panda AV,hope it will behave.

 

Ublock even without dynamic filtering will block a lot of unwanted content on a web page. Ublock with Dynamic filtering is very configurable, meaning you have complete control of a high percentage of content that is being loaded into the browser by a web page, given the degree of control you need/want. There is a learning curve so i recommend you follow PallMall's post #1025 here; https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/ublock-a-lean-and-fast-blocker.365273/page-41 or you can read the developers page here; https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki

Umatrix offers the most control for power users and includes extra features that are not offered by Ublock. U have control over the entire content of a web page. There once again there is a steep learning curve. But if you understand Dynamic filtering from Ublock you should have no problem understanding the logic and layout of the content and rule set you need to make. You must read the Wiki or you will break pages and not know why. If too much is blocked, the page will not show correctly. The trick is to allow only aspects of the page (ie make rules for elements of the page) that will show only the content that is needed to either make the page show and/or enable functions of the page. This wiki is located here; https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki

I suggest you take your time and don't jump in too quick, read as much as you can and ask for help if need be. In my opinion this is the only protection you need for any browser security and privacy wise. You do not need to use both extensions at the same time if you do not want to. They are perfectly capable by themselves. Once the rules are setup for each website, it then simply becomes maintenance. By this stage you will learn how to un-break pages and it becomes second nature.

Ublock forum is here; https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/ublock-a-lean-and-fast-blocker.365273/

and Umatrix forum is here; https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/umatrix-the-http-switchboard-successor.369601/

Enjoy the journey.

regards.

 

Sandboxie and some other stuff.

 

Trying Baidu Pan for storage of non-critical data (at least until I encrypt them myself).

 

On my Dell Precision M6800 Mobile Workstation:

Primary disk drive: Samsung 850 Evo mSATA SSD - OS's only (XP & Debian - Host/Guest)
Secondary disk drive: Samsung 850 Pro SSD - Programs & Data

Netgear 1750 R6300v2 w/OpenVPN Lite dd-wrt firmware
Wireless AC 1750 Dual Band wireless mini-card

Virtualbox
OpenVPN - iVPN + Mullvad
TrueCrypt 7.1
Comodo FW/D+ 5.10
Sandboxie 3.76
Macrium Reflect 4.2

VT Hash Check
MBAM Free
Hitman Pro (Portable)
TDSS Killer
GMER

Firefox 27.0.1 , Ixquick
Addons: Adblock Edge (EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Fanboy's Annoyance List, Malware Domains), Calomel SSL Validation, CS Lite Mod, HTTPS-Everywhere, NoScript, Private Tab, RequestPolicy, WOT, Youtube ALL HTML5, Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus

No - Plugins, Java, .NET Framework, Flash, Silverlight, IE, PDF programs, MS Office, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, iTunes, P2P/Torrent programs

Secondary (Safe) Admin, Default Deny SRP + Folder Permissions, GP/LP - Service hardening. All Ports closed at OS layer.

 

Privatefirewall+360 TSE
ZA is history

 

Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bits:
- Whitelist: WFW (filter 2-way), SRP (allow admin), UAC (allow signed)
- Mitigate: Disabled risk-ware, locked user autoruns, MBAE-Premium
- Browser: Chrome blocking advertisements (Adguard & Youtube)

 

Why?

 

One thing I have trouble understanding is why someone would share their exact security setup so an adversary would know which defenses have been adopted.

 

Interesting question. Maybe it's safe to reveal your personal setup to some extent in hope you won't be personally targeted?

 

Posting security setups a bad idea?
71% of respondents said it isn't a bad idea.

 

These blog posts written by a Kaspersky researcher are worth reading
https://securelist.com/blog/research/66911/opsec-for-security-researchers/
https://securelist.com/blog/researc...1-operational-security-in-the-physical-world/

 

Boring FUD. An adversary first has to know ones identity and location.

Have you gained access to the user data of Wilders? Have you been able to track back the mail address to an IP-address. What when the mail address was a temporary alias?

It is much easier to fingerprint your identity on the content of your posts Mr Ropchain AKA Regenpijp

 

I have never said anything about gaining knowledge about anyone's identity, only about providing information about one's security setup.
Isn't it, Kees?

 

If I would get personally targeted by Big Guys, no security setup would protect me. Even if I don't post my setup here, it wouldn't help me much.

 

Exactly and I really doubt that one of the "Big Guys" would waste time with me

 

The answer is 'it depends'. If an actor would be interesting in compromising someone's machine then it would probably still depend on an existing toolkit and not every actor has the ability to modify exploits so they would bypass several layers of mitigations (EMET, Sandbox, Anti-Executable, etc).
On the other hand, if you're targeted by a FIA, then you're probably toast.