Here I am again, the problem I had with my computer was that it kept locking me out of my connection to the internet..did a restore ,finally a whole recovery.. This time I was careful. First installed comodo firewall, then spywareblaster and spywareguard, Ad-aware SE plus then updated my computer to SP2 with all the XP hotfixes..(used automatic update..) antivir classic, then a-squared free ,SUPERantispyware, now I've replaced spywareguard with Arovax shield...(Thinking it might offer me a little more protection..(tell me if I am wrong though) but had no problem with spywareguard...javacool is cool) A-squared detected Iambigbrother and i got that deleted PDQ. But haven't had many major issues here lately. But if you all have any other recommendations let me know. I'd also like to add before the recovery my system was a bit of a mess, the way I installed things before. This time I did it in order and the way Windows update had me install.. Adaware and Arovax have some similar features.. So I don't know if I am doing another overkill here or not. Hopefully this will be the last time i have to do a recovery.. For us that are technically challenged or somewhat illiterate on the subjrct we need all the help we can get. I like this forum.. I feel like it is imformative.. If you all feel i need a few tweaks or add ons, let me know. Again, those boogers out there are ready to hit anyone that has a vulnerability and with me ,they got to into my system fast, because I wasn't really educated enough to deal with them.. Being on cable modem makes it riskier too. But even when i was on dialup I had problems, dialers and other stuff just popped up, had my phone number changed, my home page changed.. so hope you all know where I am com8ing from here.
If you are running ad-watch and arovax shield then yes they do cover similar areas and only one of them would really be needed, i'm not too sure which would be better. Antivir + comodo is a good basic setup, i'd use that combined with firefox + noscript.
In my opinion, any DSL or cable modem user can/will dramatically improve their security if they install a hardware firewall/NAT router as their first line of defense. These devices cost less $80 (USD), are easy to implement, and trap/reject almost all intrusion attempts by the cyber criminals.
I am imagine an external hardware firewall would probably benefit me, but righ t now that will have to wait as I am on an extremely tight budget.. I decided to keep the arovax shield along with the lavasoft ad-aware plus as I have seen no conflict between the two and they offer protection from browser hijacks.. also still have a-squared free, antivir personal classic,spywareblaster. Both SE plus and spywareblaster both have their own lists of restricted sites..and have added prevx1, so I will see how that setup works...Yep I'm probably a little paranoid but after so many security issues in the past,I've had to learn the hard way.When I had to do my recovery.. I boooted from cd disc... clean install, in the past I used my reovery partition and it turned out to be corrupted.. Bought the back up cd's. After the recovery I installed comodo, sywareblaster,spywareguard and lavasoft and then did the updates on my computer from microsoft, I felt like lavasoft and the others would allow some layer of protection while downloading the updates and apparently they did. I also tried installing firefox, disabling IE explorer(this was before my downfall) Slowed down my computer and many programs wouldn't work when IE was disabled... Now if I could do a safe uninstall that would be another thing.I'm not sure that that would be possible on my system. I don't install any IM programs,and don't click on ads.. unless I know something about the site and about them..It seems with all the alarm about security issues, it takes some of the fun out of surfing.... I guess the only alternative is not to use the computer at all. I have Wild tangent on my computer, and I am wondering if I should uninstall that or find safer alternatives ...am open to suggestions .It's a shame that people have to be on their guard these days, but that is a fact of life. Now with the more advanced malware and executions it is too risky to leave yourself wide open. I guess no one solution exists... but it sure would be nice if there was a way to get all these killjoys off the net and make browsing safe for everyone... It'd be nice if we could put all the unwanted stuff in a sandbox and isolate them from the rest of the world,lol
hi a.k. do not uninstall/disable your IE. as you found out it causes problems with your sys. when you install ff do not set it as your default browser either, only ie can be your default browser;-). L
