How many scans?

With a new bug every day how many scans should we make? I've become a bit paranoid these days and scan about every other day. Is this going to shorten the life of my hard drive or processor? Sometimes I wonder if all the access to information the internet gives us is worth the hassel.

What do you think?

Bruce

 

Hi brucegeulam,

I usually scan with my AV and AT about once a week, maybe more often if for some reason I think I have been infected.

As long as you have safe surfing practices, scan all downloads with you AV and AT before opening them, then that should be enough.

Some things you should read and check into:

Some tips and links that will help you stay safe on-line can be found HERE.

And here is a good read about how to be better protected : Click Me.

To help keep your system clean, these are also freeware programs that we recommend:
SpywareBlaster - will protect you from all spy/foistware in it's database by blocking installation of their ActiveX objects.
SpywareGuard - provides a degree of real-time protection against spyware that is a great addition to SpywareBlaster's protection method.
IE-Spyad - will put a list of bad domains and sites into the Restricted Site Zone of your IE Browser. This will help protect IE and prevent those drive-by downloads, browser hijacking, ActiveX, Java, popups, cookies, etc, from compromising your computer while you surf.

And of course, you should have a trusted spyware removal program (I recommend having them both as one may catch what the other may not, since they update at different times):
Spybot Search&Destroy
SpybotS&D Setup Tutorial.
Ad-Aware
Ad-Aware Setup Tutorial.
Before scanning with either Ad-Aware or Spybot S&D, remember to bring them up-to-date first.

Regards,
Kent

 

Do you fear that you are at risk?

Accidents don't happen to you out of the blue. Most computer accidents are the result of the use of the computer. The latest bunch of bagles could only happen because users are made curious to the content of an email. Trojans happen because a software source can not be trusted (warez sites, p2p file sharing).

A large number of accidents is due to the use bad components, like IE and OE: Hijacking, infiltration by worms like MS Blaster. Partly because of failing maintenance, partly because of ignorance.

If this kind of behaviour is yours: by all means scan what you can and as often as you can.
If however you're a bit security conscious and you take a few precautions: why scan? Last few years I do scan once in a while (say three months) and all that is found are a few tracking cookies, I don't care much about those.

Since I don't use buggy tools, those risks are almost nil. I don't have any illegal stuff, why bother?

So, your question cannot be answered in one way. Security is a matter of trust. If you don't trust yourself or your system, conpensate by taking the right measurements. To me scanning my systems is too much trouble. I rather stay secure (errr copyright Microsoft I presume ) by not being exploitable by vulnerabilities, that's by far more easy.

 

I agree that full system scans aren't necessary more than about once a week {the default NAV settings}; I disagree with the popular implication that everything MS touches is insecure; this is exaggeration. IE/OE can be secured by tweaking settings, and also by supplementing them with a good resident firewall, AV, AT, etc. Just my two cents.

 

I run full scans a lot - but in my case, I'm simply checking for false positives!

(Hard drives aren't that expensive!). Pete

 

I agree that a weekly full system scan is plenty. Further agree that "safe hex" practices (e.g. scan everything prior to execute/open) are far more important.

A routine full system scan (say, on a weekly basis) shouldn't measurably diminish the life of your drive, particularly if you take other simple steps to maintain it. To put it another way, a regimen of regular full system scans and regular defragmenting will be better for your drive than doing neither.

 

I do full scans with everything I've got once a week plus a full defrag when they're all done on my Win98se. I have fewer crashes this way.

And, oh yes some things have been detected (not false positives) and I truly do practice safe-surfing. There's a lot of nasty stuff out there. Best to be cautious.

 

How many hard drives have you burned out to date just scanning and updating all those Security Programs?

Don't you miss all that quality time on the real Internet.

I think it is time to buy two hard drive next time and load each up with all the goodies and put one in the cupboard for safe keeping..that way you will not have to start from scratch.

 

One.

No.

Good idea. Pete

 

I thought so too..but then for some of those products you might have to buy two licenses..hmmmm..you have to find a vendor who only charges for one and lets you install it on as many as you want.

 

Thanks all, for the input.

I like the 2 hard drive idea, might have to try that one.

Suppose I'll back off to maybe one scan a week. I've not had any major problems in 2 yrs. so something must be working.

Surf on!
Bruce

 

Here's my security regimin:
Daily scans with Nortons AV and SpySweeper
Every other day/alternating with AdAware & Spybot S&D
Trojan Scans every other day. That along with the active protection of Spyware Guard & Spyware Blaster and WinPatrol, IE SPYADS, and MVPS Hosts, keeps me protected, never any intrusions, hijackings or viruses in 6 years.

 

The best scan one can perform is with one's intellect! Everytime you do something online, think about it and ask yourself if what you're doing is really "safe hex." Over the years, that's what made most of my security apps pretty unused utilities (but I'm still glad I have 'em!)