PreView 1.0 - Anyone tried it?

clueless: Well they have actually fixed some of that.. the only things that it misses now, that SecureIt changes, is the My Computer Zone stuff (unfortuantately a huge part of what you see listed in the "Threat Center") and PCT. There were a couple others previously, but they did fix some.. hopefully they continue to do so. SecureIt does change the "My Computer" zone to the "Your Computer" zone, and changes the icon, so I don't know what other kind of changes it makes, hopefully it doesn't make the changes in a way that that would make it impossible for PreView to pick up.. for example the way it changes the restricted sites zone to keep the settings in a different part of the registry. The only other thing I can think of is that those entries do list a couple things that Qwik-Fix handles that SecureIt doesn't, for instance the HTML MIME Vulnerability, so I don't know if that factors in or not... maybe I'll have to play with it a little more tonight.

Edit: I just checked the forum and they mentioned that there are some updates due out in the next few days addressing some of this stuff

BTW, I do totally see your point about mostly already secured people using it, but I do think they appeal to the 'newbie' crowd quite a bit, so I'm confident that it will actually get some exposure to the intended audience.

 

I think that's part of what drives a lot of people to this site

Disabling parts of Windows that you don't use, that might be used by malware or hackers. By "hardening" your system you take away the exploits that they use to gain control of your system, effectively hardening it against attack. Think of something made of clay - it's easier to destroy it before it's baked.

I think you're ultimately correct.. some hardening can go a long way, but having something like True Image on hand is a very good idea, for many reasons. I just sprung for it this weekend myself, and quite happy with it The bottom line is that some hardening can make it harder for these things to get into your system in the first place, as well as possibly increase the performance and stability of your system, but you will always want to have something on backup for the 'worst case scenario' Even besides security, your system WILL eventually fail, and you should be as prepared as possible.

 

There is a new update for PreView, it now detects changes made by 3rd party hardening tools properly. When I disable Qwik-Fix, run SecureIt, and re-calculate my score it gives 100% in the "Threat Center" now

 

Notok,

Thanks so much for the information. I'm here to learn & this site has never disappointed me.

I have been a home PC user for only 3.5 years but it seems to me that the security situation continually worsens & the response appears to be entirely defensive in nature. You have to keep digging a deeper foxhole & placing more sandbags around it. Personally, I have reached a point where I am ready to climb out of this foxhole & give these scumbags a few security concerns to deal with. Bear in mind, I am not advocating violence - there is too much of that going on already. It just seems to me that the criminal nature of this behavior is not taken seriously. There has to be a sufficient deterrent factor to discourage the parties involved in spreading these parasites.

Given the international nature of the internet only makes the matter more complex & I can only speak for my country. I would love to see a first offense resulting in confiscation of all the offender's hardware & software with at least a 5 year probationary period in which the offender is not allowed an e-mail address & even touching a computer is a violation of probation. Let them spend their days picking up trash by the side of the highway & their nights in a cage because that is exactly where they belong.

In addition, I do not want to hear about the difficulties involved in tracing down the offenders. I have seen my government trace them down in less than 2 hours. If some pimply-faced kid can outwit a government with an acre of Cray supercomputers, I am due a refund of the taxes I pay every year.

I know this is off-topic & my apologies for going on a rant. I am just madder-than-hell about the entire situation.

Time to take a deep breath & measure my blood pressure,

Slim

 

I just tried the latest updated version and get

Threat Center = F (same)

Security Software = B+ (up from a C)

Patches = A (same)

Firewall = A (same)

For a total score of 72. Some improvement over the last version, but Preview could still use some more tweaking in my opinion.