Computer geeks - help, please: what is this?

Not a geek as such but look here
http://www.mcse.ms/archive156-2004-2-333714.html

A helpful response in six minutes.

Cool. Thanks.

Regards

Mike

Spending money I don't have on things I don't need.

Alex
Me too. I was recommended Ad Aware, downloaded and ran it and got over 100 items removed! I now also run spy bot.
Martin

I was recommended it by a confirmed PC nerd because of the undo feature, as apparently it can be quite ruthless in its activity!

http://www.spy-bot.net/

Spybot

This is the real Spybot. - Jun

Yet another address for the real spybot. I visit the ad-aware, spybot and avg sites each day looking for updates and every Wednesday try the Microsoft site for OS updates. Some weeks I get say 3 ad-awre and 3 avg updates with the S&D updates every month or so it only takes a littlew gtime to check and it makes me feel safe

quote:

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and it makes me feel safe

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I use Adaware, avg, Norton and Zonealarm and still got a virus that shut down the firewall , antivirusprogram and screwed the pc completely.... I also keep the programmes updated..

Hmm

These comments fill me with uneasiness.

Out of interest, not sarcasm, how much time do you guys actually get to use your PC to do something, as against just having to run the gamut of paranoia that seems to infect the PC using experience at every point.

That is, looking after/protecting/maintaining/babying the PC, as against just actually being able to spend time using it for productive things.

It reminds me of having to constantly check everything, repair everything on the run as it were, with my first Triumph Motorcyle - fun when it was going, but a heap of poorly engineered and unreliable rubbish when it wasn't - which was often.

The thing is, I can really identify with all of this with my PC, so I'm not immune either.

Question: Are Macs/Linux free/immune from all this b******t, or do they have there security concerns as well? I make no bones for calling it b******t, as I am unable to think of ANY tool, consumer or professional, that is as unreliable and troublesome as a PC.

We put up with it for what? - the ability to do a few useful things in between all the maintainence/paranoia?

Having the PC become a problem in itself, and tie up most of ones spare time, or large chunks of it? - perhaps if one is a computer hobbyist, and gets self esteem and ego boosting from all the fixing it makes sense, but not otherwise IMHO.

So seriously - why put up with it, and are Macs/Linux immune?

End of rant...

Best Regards

John...

This is my last upgrade.... after this my system will be finished...:-)

Jun
Thanks for that link
Martin

Not knowing enough about this sort of thing, having run Ad-Aware, I am a bit worried about what to do with all the files that have been identified. Is it safe just to ditch them? None of them I can identify as being important.

Rasher so far I've got rid of 100's of things Ad Aware has found with no probs

Rasher, if you are unsure you can put files in quarantine and activate them later if you would need them. I have not had any problems ditching them all though.

[This message was edited by bjorne on Mon 28 June 2004 at 12:20.]

thanks guys. in quarantine now.

Most of the virus / malware is made for Windows, but if you have Mac or Linux you also have to take care about security. E.g. antivirus software and clean up and of course: backups!!!

- Jun

P.S.: THE real real link: www.spybot.info

I work for a networking and security company and one of the biggest problems with home PCs is ignorance. Ignorance that can screw you up, or others.

For those computer users (PC, mac, linux, etc) with broadband connections I would strongly recommend chucking away the (usually free) ADSL modem away and buying an ADSL router. They generally come with a packet-inspecting firewall and will generally have to be configured to allow inbound connections. I use a D-Link DSL-604+ (http://www.dlink.co.uk/pages/products/dsl604plus.asp) which also does wireless but you don't have to have wireless (great though it is). Any make will do so long as it has a built-in firewall and make sure you get one with VPN passthrough if you connect to an office network using VPN software.

Don't forget you also need personal firewall software (a la Sygate, Norton etc) and Anti-Virus software. Security is like an onion - every layer you put between you and a malicious user slows 'em down or trips 'em up.



-- woody

Glad to see my post wasn't taken as a 'flame', which it wasn't intended to be. But I did/have/still occasionaly do find the PC experience intrusive and high maintainence to say the least. Fine if you're employed doing it, or you love tinkering hobbyist style, heh, I have enough to keep me going there with other interests without having to contend with cantankerous PC's.

I bought a Mac just over a year ago, thus qualifying as a 'switcher' albeit I still have my PC networked to my Mac, used mainly for backup purposes. I have spybot, zone alarm, AVG anti-virus etc on the PC, and on that platform wouldn't be without them.

As a .Mac subscriber I have McAffee anti-virus on the Mac, albeit as of yet there are no known viruse written for OSX, so it is there mainly to not pass on windoze viruses to windoze users, the mac more or less being immune to them.

On the firewall side of it, the Mac has a port firewall, mainly to be used on a network as I understand it, but I have not as yet used the likes of Spybot, or Ad-aware on the Mac, as again I was under the impression (possibly erroneously I might add) that the Mac with its Unix underpinnings was largely immune from the sort of malware programs Spybot and Ad-aware are designed to detect.

As I'm on dialup, and do not share the internet connection with the PC from the Mac, I so far haven't seen the need to fiddle with port firewalls on the Mac.

Am I missing something?

It's really nice to be 'free' from all that windows hassle, but then again, one needs to be a little cautious as well re the internet, Mac or no Mac.

Could Garyi, or other OSX Mac users perhaps like to comment?

Best Regards

John...

This is my last upgrade.... after this my system will be finished...:-)

John,

I have a iBook with Mac OSX and (so far) have never had any problems with viruses. That said, it's probably better to be safe than sorry and so Norton Utilities or similar should be essential because one can't discount the possibility that an OSX-enabled virus could find its way into my iBook at some point in the future.

As a Mac user it is indeed nice to be able to look at other virus-afflicted PC-users and say "bad luck" with more than a little dose of schadenfreude thrown in for good measure, but with so may viruses about it can't be long before some evil bastard cottons on and starts converting them to Mac....

JonR

Viruses are only a small part of the problem. Network attacks are more problemmatic in that they're generally much harder to spot...there are websites that do portscans to probe various common UNIX services (POP3, SMTP, finger, whois) and exploits to them (generally by crafting packets to overflow a buffer and get root access).

For example, check:

http://www.dslreports.com/scan

-- woody

Just a quick addition here,

My desktop PC recently became VERY unstable, kept on re-booting by itself, and was INCREDIALBLY slow.

I also have a portable PC with a wireless adsl router...

BOTH have fully updated Norton A/V - firewall and 'add alert'.

I had heard of what trojans & tracking cookies could do and thought they had all been deleted by the programs installed.. WRONG!! Installed a product by 'webroot' to see just what if any were still on here...

156 trojans!! (1 0f which, when found, Norton jumped on immediately) PLUS OVER 1400 other nasties inc tracking cookies etc.... these were all removed and I'm now sat here on a now back to full speed and non crashing PC..

The cynic inside of me does wonder if any of these are 'put on' to need yet another program to destroy them.. but it truly makes me sick that there are so many midless people out there who want to do so much damage.

My registry had virtually been doubled in size with all this c*** in there, and so many of the tracking nasties were in my young daughters files... disgusting!

Woody
I went the route you suggested, been fine ever since, its much more secure

I recently downloaded and used an adware/spyware removing package free from AOL.

The result has been that I don't have to edit my posts so often on this forum just to fill in the missing letters.

Te rslt ha bn tat I don't hveto edit y ps o fn on this frm jsttoflte mssingletrs.

The above sentence is what I used to get, given that I have to look at the keyboad whilst I type with one finger, before the ad/spyware was removed.



Regards,

Steve.