What is your security setup these days?

Apart from Snowden, just do the math on backup time of 30gbs of data at a typical US 3mbs internet link vs the backup time of doing it on a USB 3.0 local connection, or even USB 2.0. You need a 1gbs uplink and downlink connection to use cloud storage at anything near local drive speeds.

On both speed and security, local storage beats the cloud. Not to mention it keeps control of your data in your own hands.

 

Good man, Kerish Doctor - amazing program.

You are way behind on Snagit, I thought they were on v12 or something.

 

Totally agree.

Regards Eck

 

Thanks for the advice so far.. I'm using a trial of Macrium v6 at the moment, and I'm very impressed with it. As incrementals are important to me though, for the moment I need to use a secondary backuo program (money is tight, or I'd buy the full version if Macrium). Aoemi seems to be quite popular on here, though I can't find much about Comodo. Does anyone have any experience with it? Preferably experience of doing a restore (successfully!). After all, no backup program is any use whatsoever if it fails on restoring!

The other program I'm curious about is CCleaner, which seems to be universally frowned upon, and I can't work out why? I've used it successfully (and carefully!) for quite a few years. I understand the potential for damage if people use the registry cleaning aspect without understanding the keys being removed.

With regard to AV, I'm incredibly impressed with Qihoo 360 TIS, which again, doesn't seem to fare well on here, yet gets some decent reviews. I understand there have been security issues with the company themselves. My main criticism of it is that it dies throw out a hell of a lot of false positives. This could probably be remedied if you could turn off their virus database and use only Avira and Bitdefender, but that isn't an option.

Lastly, is it worth looking at other firewalls, instead of the Windows Firewall? My router has a built in firewall, though I've no idea how effective it, or the Windows firewall, is. I'm not aware of ever having been hacked though!

Thanks

Ollie

 

Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bits:
- WFW (two-way), Applocker (allow trusted only), UAC (allow signed elevation only)
- SecureFolders (users+appdata), MBAE free (browsers), EMET (other apps)
- Chrome (extensions: Poper blocker, GIF jam, Privacy badger)

 

I've been using CCleaner for a long time and never had a problem using it. I usually clean registry once a month and I find it quite conservative. Still I check results before cleaning anything.
I don't like too aggressive cleaners that tend to clean too much and then break the system or applications.

 

Ccleaner is. 'meh' these days IMO. It's almost TOO conservative..

Bleachbit, go to preferences, enable community INI. Exit it, reload it, and run it.. So much better (and faster) then CCleaner.

 

I've just started using a 90 day trial of Norton Internet Security. Excellent protection, and very light.

My security setup now is:

Real Time
Norton Internet Security

On Demand
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Baidu PC Faster, AdwCleaner, Adware Removal Tool

 

NIS or NS?

NIS = v21.x
NS = v22.x

 

I hope he means Norton Security or Norton Security w/Backup?

 

I would like to know what your plan is if a fire burns everything in your house or a hurricane, tsunami, tornado, etc. wipes out everything? How safe is your data stored on an external hard drive then? Computer gone, external HD gone, everything gone. Cloud is still there though. I use local and cloud backups.

 

@Krusty13 @Mayahana It is Norton Internet Security. The trial licence I got won't work with Norton Security.
I initially installed Norton Security, but couldn't trial it due to me having recently tried it on my Windows 10 install. I guess I could have created another Norton account and used it that way, but I searched for a trial licence online and the one I found won't work with Norton Security.

Is there much difference between NIS and NS? As, I've posted in the Norton thread, NIS is extremely light, except when doing on demand scans.

 

Performance improvements, UI changes mainly. NS / NSwB could offer more protection than NIS but I haven't seen any side by side tests to verify that.

 

@Krusty13 Thanks for the information.

 

The same thing could be said of the building where the cloud servers are located; it too could be caught up in a hurricane, tsunami... A little far-fetched perhaps, but the risk is there.

There's a risk where ever we choose to store our data. At the end of the day it's how much trust we put into the method we choose. Perhaps it's best to employ more than one solution to have something to fall back on.

 

Exactly. I decided to start using local and cloud while backing up my data one day to a portable drive. I thought to myself, what if my house burns down or I am robbed? Everything could possibly be gone for good. I wasn't thrilled with cloud storage, but I would rather take my chances than permanently lose my data.

I use Box - https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/200526718-Is-My-Data-Encrypted-

 

Oh, the licensing is different too now. NS covers 5 devices and NSwB covers 10 devices, where NIS was good for 3 PCs.

NS / NSwB v22 relies more heavily on the 'cloud' for full protection now, also Pulse Updates and Network Security Map have been removed.

 

Wise person.

Last year we suffered a catastrophic flood. I was fully insured, and had the damaged aspects of my home re-constructed. But I lost local backups, my server room was destroyed, along with my Fortigate 100D appliance, and almost all network gear. I started taking data retention more seriously then, and rely on a blended solution - like you.

NS has stronger IPS, and background technologies based on SEP. It's even lighter, and more cloud based, but also stronger.

 

That's funny. I thought for sure you must be misspelling it... as in American English, Poperblocker might indicate one is blocking the Pope. While Popperblocker would probably be blocking pop ups.. I guess for some, they might want to block the Pope..

Anyway, I was not familiar with it and looked it up... and yep, you are spelling it correctly.

Yet another thing I need to now check out..

 

It has a weird logo button also, but you can hide that. It stops pop-ups from those nasty adds which are triggered when you close a (overlay) window. I found GIF JAM to stop another nuisance: flashing or animated gifs (it only shows first frame). Found Privacy badger (of Electronic Frontier Foundation) which works simular to IE's personalized tracklist.

 

You can use Winapp2.ini definitions with CCleaner too, bleachbit is nice and all but has a horrendous interface.

 

Real-time:
Comodo Firewall 8.2 (Proactive, all unrecognized apps blocked)
MBAE Premium (Added MPC-HC shield)

On-demand:
MBAM
Zemana AntiMalware (Latest beta)
Process Explorer (With VirusTotal check)
Autoruns

Related:
Norton ConnectSafe (Router)
Macrium Reflect Free

Browser:
Chrome with uBlock, HTTPS Everywhere, Poper Blocker and some non-security related extensions (EXIF Viewer, Gestures for Google Chrome and HD for Youtube).

 

WFW is the shortening for ?

 

It's a cleaner I run once a week.. The interface could be a serious of crayon drawings, as long as it works, I don't care.

Bleachbit is written entirely in C++ and Assembly, it's FAR faster. I clean machines with 1-10 MILLION temp files. CCleaner takes 30-60 minutes on them. Bleachbit takes 4 minutes max. It's a well programmed software, I'd hope the devs spend time on code/algorithms, and not on the interface.

 

I have been using both, didn't notice anything that different between them performance wise.Since both of them work equally well for me I go with the better interface. But then, I don't clean machines with 10 mil temp files.