The minimum protection available?

We have NOD32 and KAV5 WS running on some critical computers. All machines are XP SP2 and have Sygate Firewalls.

The machines with KAV 5 WS have nothing else running on them and we are not seeing any problems with them. They perform very well and we have not had to do anything to them sinse installing KAV.

The machines with NOD32 also have an AT running on them.

It is nice to have layers of protection but when you have a lot of machines scattered around with all types of people using them, we need to keep the setup's as simple as possible. We deal with one company that has 100's of machines running just KAV 5 WS without any problems.

Dick

 

That's a heck of a lot of resources used in running that lot by the look. How many processes do you have running Blackspear? I am running NOD32 64bit beta (I would feel happier running KAV but that isn't 64bit compatible yet) and Spybot resident, and have 26 and think that's too many.

 

That is only some of the security that I am running, and it would be a minimalist approach for me. Here's a screenshot.

Cheers

 

Well I guess I'll post my set up. While nothing is perfect I feel good about it. Over kill can cause harm but who am I to ever suggest one has over kill.

Here is my set up on two machines:
Both behind Router with Hardware FW:

Family machine: Windows SP2 Firewall, McAfee AV 9, McAfee Privacy Service, BoClean, SpyBot SD, Adaware Plus, (Adwatch never runs ) and A2 free scanner only.

My machine: Out Post Pro, EZ AV 2005, BoClean, Spybot SD. This machine is older but is a golden oldie

 

I presume the reason for running EZ AV 2005 on your golden oldie is because it is very light and uses very few resources on a old computer. Perhaps sometime you might consider trialing NOD with Blackspear's settings. From what I've heard you should not notice a slowdown and your overall protection would be increased.

 

I use Dr.Web(With Adware extensions) and Safe'N'Sec, I consider it light as all heck, minimalistic, and absolutely effective!

 

For me personally, NOD, LnS, PG, RD and RegRun Gold running resident. RegRun is handy at startup for it's check of my list of protected Files (Both system files and security apps/files - which is customizable). Others include FireFox for browsing, Pegasus for Email, Personalized Hosts and an Integrity Checker for extensive file checks (compared to the approx. 60 files I have RegRun check at Startup) as well as a good Imaging Program. That's what I've currently thin my protection to, and what I believe to be my minimalist setup that I'm very comfortable with.

 

You are completely correct Hammer in your presumption. I picked up a boxed copy of EZ at Target for about $20. Cheap...Cheap...Cheap I am. My surf habits are cautious too. So I will be o.k. on that machine.

One day I will muster the dollars to pay the $39 for NOD. Or more then likely I am just waiting for a deal and I think one day it will come I just feel it.

 

All I can say is "WOW"! Thanks for posting that BlackSpear, I take it your not a gamer?...

Just out of interest, what is your boot time to Desktop?

 

i just use free ones and have for 10 years without any problems

http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html#faq [this is a hosts file]

avg free

adaware se

spybot/teatimer is on

msas

i check my own hijackthis logs

ccleaner

online trendmicro free online scan

pcpitstop online scan

shields up online scan

i've used this setup for years except for MSAS the only problems i've had is downloading via p2p had a couple of viruses which were caught by avg and easily fixed why pay when you can get it for free

 

IMHO most important is a patched/updated secure operating system, which reduces the work any security software needs to do. I understand that we all can't use Linux though

So next best is patching Windows (anyone got a Mac like to comment on patching/security ?), service packing, securing your machine with sensible configurate (user account permissions, unwanted services/applications, correct configuration of web browsers (spyware blaster, cookies, popup blocker etc)).

Then I have have to accept that nasties can/will get on our machine, I personally think that all is needed is protection from the internet, a firewall, ideally from a router / server with NAT, if not a basic software filewall.

Then a nice virus scanner running on access/demand, eg KAV/NOD32?Mcafee Enterprise , i don't believe in application filtering of software firewalls (or any process guarding), firm believer in proactive rather than reactive approach.
I think that KAV has sufficient Malware capabilities, I have only tried NOD32 for a week so far so no conclusions on its malware detection ability.

Thats what I use, I would'nt use less, dont feel the need for more, been permantly hooked upto the internet for 5 years now (more if you count when I was hooked up to Uni !), not once had a problem with this setup.

 

So very true, and you'd be amazed at how few people out there really keep up with this. A few months ago we got hired to clean out a verifications technology lab, the machines that got hit with the w32 worm were ones without updates...and boy was this time consuming. All could have been prevented if the user only applied two critical updates that came out OVER A YEAR AGO.

 

I have 1GB of DDR2 RAM using the latest 775 series P4 3.0GHz, boot time is very quick, from passing Windows Logo to complete is around 7 seconds.

Cheers

 

Thats just insanity man...

Heres mine, never infected - EVER.

http://www.boredmofo.com/downloads/processes.JPG

 

Me too