I'm curious about who is using what. Currently my interactive choices are OutPost Firewall 2009 (free), Avast 6.0.1125, MalwareBytesPro 1.50.1.1100. Standalone I have HitmanPro 3.5, Pavark AntiRootkit 1.0.8, Rootkit Revealer, Spybot S&D, SysClean & TDSS Rootkit.

N

I don't use any security software for aprox 4 years. Last FW I've used was Jetico PFW and last AV I've used was Kaspersky. It's a long time since my system (w2k) got infected with malware. Never had to deal with malware for the last 8 years. Maybe I'm just lucky.
My only defense line are a task manager (not the one shipped with w2k) and a tool showing the autostart locations of my system. Over the years I managed to find out the basics about my OS, the basis of my luck maybe.
Of course there is no guaranty that I won't get hit by malware in the future but no security software would give me an extra feeling of security.

like yogi i don't care for antviruses and the like. i just use beyond logic's trust-no-exe to run executables only from where they are allowed to http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/trust-no-exe/trust-no-exe.htm
and an old machine(dual p3 800mhz) as a network firewall with freebsd which is unbreakable
https://neon1.net/misc/firewall.html
http://www.lugbe.ch/lostfound/contrib/freebsd_router/
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/firewalls.html

you can use any of the bsd family, like net or openbsd and you don't really need to install the desktop..you can use any lite release, even as old as freebsd 3.5, just as powerful. if it's just for home, you can install it on something as ancient as pentium2 just make sure it's a reliable solid machine... you don't need something fast, it won't make much difference but bullet-proof hardware is a must. you will need to be somewhat familiar with unix shell

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disrupted
like yogi i don't care for antviruses and the like. i just use beyond logic's trust-no-exe to run executables only from where they are allowed to http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/trust-no-exe/trust-no-exe.htm
and an old machine(dual p3 800mhz) as a network firewall with freebsd which is unbreakable
https://neon1.net/misc/firewall.html
http://www.lugbe.ch/lostfound/contrib/freebsd_router/
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/firewalls.html

you can use any of the bsd family, like net or openbsd and you don't really need to install the desktop..you can use any lite release, even as old as freebsd 3.5, just as powerful. if it's just for home, you can install it on something as ancient as pentium2 just make sure it's a reliable solid machine... you don't need something fast, it won't make much difference but bullet-proof hardware is a must. you will need to be somewhat familiar with unix shell

thanks for all the ideas. Don't think I'm going to try out Linux again.... lots of my tools are old DOS apps for writing and editing. I do use DropMyRights for all my browsers and MalwareBytesPro, both interactive. Lots of standalone stuff and of course a software firewall. But I don't have and never had owned a desktop machine. This is an old ThinkPad T40 with a Pentium 3 processor.... Mobile enough for my needs and a USB stick with apps on it when I'm not carrying.

N

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ndebord
I'm curious about who is using what. Currently my interactive choices are OutPost Firewall 2009 (free), Avast 6.0.1125, MalwareBytesPro 1.50.1.1100. Standalone I have HitmanPro 3.5, Pavark AntiRootkit 1.0.8, Rootkit Revealer, Spybot S&D, SysClean & TDSS Rootkit.

2 machines. Older w/XP & a few Linux Distros. Laptop w/Win7. On both all I use is the standard Windows firewall blocking inbound. That's it. Gave up on AV apps etc... about a year ago or so I guess. Just came to the realization that the only "viruses" all the different AV apps were finding all these years were annoying false positives. Just wasn't worth the performance hit they were causing. And I surf w/full JS enabled on all browsers, download & install several apps per week to try them out, visit a couple p*rn sites, download torrent files. You name it. All the things that supposedly put me at risk and I've never been infected all these years. Only security besides Windows firewall would be displaying email as text initially and scanning any suspect file I download w/ClamWin. Not sure it does much, but just an extra precaution to put my mind at ease if I have any doubts. On occasion I use CCleaner just for tidiness sake and I also monitor active tasks w/the task manager regularly. More-so for memory/cpu checking than anything else.

Having said that, my family & loved ones have been infected with much tamer surfing habits and w/AV apps installed. I think the major culprits are html/attachment emails and unintentionally clicking popup malware while surfing. So perhaps flashblock and adblock can be considered security apps, both of which I use primarily for cleaner page viewing. Or maybe I've just been lucky so far. But it's going to take a major infection for me to start using full-fledged AV apps again. Doubt that'll happen since it's never happened to me in over 15 years.

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jsnj

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ndebord
I'm curious about who is using what. Currently my interactive choices are OutPost Firewall 2009 (free), Avast 6.0.1125, MalwareBytesPro 1.50.1.1100. Standalone I have HitmanPro 3.5, Pavark AntiRootkit 1.0.8, Rootkit Revealer, Spybot S&D, SysClean & TDSS Rootkit.

2 machines. Older w/XP & a few Linux Distros. Laptop w/Win7. On both all I use is the standard Windows firewall blocking inbound. That's it. Gave up on AV apps etc... about a year ago or so I guess. Just came to the realization that the only "viruses" all the different AV apps were finding all these years were annoying false positives. Just wasn't worth the performance hit they were causing. And I surf w/full JS enabled on all browsers, download & install several apps per week to try them out, visit a couple p*rn sites, download torrent files. You name it. All the things that supposedly put me at risk and I've never been infected all these years. Only security besides Windows firewall would be displaying email as text initially and scanning any suspect file I download w/ClamWin. Not sure it does much, but just an extra precaution to put my mind at ease if I have any doubts. On occasion I use CCleaner just for tidiness sake and I also monitor active tasks w/the task manager regularly. More-so for memory/cpu checking than anything else.

Having said that, my family & loved ones have been infected with much tamer surfing habits and w/AV apps installed. I think the major culprits are html/attachment emails and unintentionally clicking popup malware while surfing. So perhaps flashblock and adblock can be considered security apps, both of which I use primarily for cleaner page viewing. Or maybe I've just been lucky so far. But it's going to take a major infection for me to start using full-fledged AV apps again. Doubt that'll happen since it's never happened to me in over 15 years.

jsnj,

Gotten hit twice over the past couple of years.... once with Commodo as the firewall and once with Avira as the anti-virus program. Avast does it better IMO and I am willing to suffer a performance hit.... really don't notice much and I have an old Thinkpad T40 with a Pentium M solo chipset and only 768 Megs RAM, so that would be an issue and has been one with Norton (in the past). Anyhow, works for me and I don't think I would be willing to go out there without my security blanket!

<g>

N



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2011 11:57PM by ndebord.

I just got my first virus yesterday after a 29 year clean record (hmmm are there any 1982 Atari 800 viruses? . I too live a "high risk" life. Common sense helps a lot of course. I'm not actually sure where it got in. I installed mudlet on both Win computers but only one got infected. The other one got infected via the network but was 1 cycle behind so I think the software install was coincidence. My best guess is that the unpatched reinstalled win95 (lazy of me) running Opera 9.64 with dialup (images off) was the fault. I may have clicked something I should not have. Oh yeah my router for both machines has a firewall that blocks inbound connects except for the P2P hole I made. No AV software on either W9x machine. I've reinstalled a old F-PROT virus scanner now with a date change workaround to force it to work.

--
P2 400 MHz, 128 MB, Win 98 SE

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MXB
I just got my first virus yesterday after a 29 year clean record (hmmm are there any 1982 Atari 800 viruses? . I too live a "high risk" life. Common sense helps a lot of course. I'm not actually sure where it got in. I installed mudlet on both Win computers but only one got infected. The other one got infected via the network but was 1 cycle behind so I think the software install was coincidence. My best guess is that the unpatched reinstalled win95 (lazy of me) running Opera 9.64 with dialup (images off) was the fault. I may have clicked something I should not have. Oh yeah my router for both machines has a firewall that blocks inbound connects except for the P2P hole I made. No AV software on either W9x machine. I've reinstalled a old F-PROT virus scanner now with a date change workaround to force it to work.

MXB,

What? You got F-Prot to work again? How?

<g>

N

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ndebord
MXB,

What? You got F-Prot to work again? How?
<g>

FP.BAT
DATE 2-2-2008
C:\DOS\F-PROT\F-PROT %1
DATE

<VBG>

Provided useful info on the old worm I caught, although I manually found all the infected and generated files without it. (I hope)

--
P2 400 MHz, 128 MB, Win 98 SE

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MXB

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ndebord
MXB,

What? You got F-Prot to work again? How?
<g>

FP.BAT
DATE 2-2-2008
C:\DOS\F-PROT\F-PROT %1
DATE

<VBG>

Provided useful info on the old worm I caught, although I manually found all the infected and generated files without it. (I hope)

MXB,

Which F-Prot, as I look through my archive I realize that I had deleted my old versions completely. :-(

N

F-prot 3.16f. I almost deleted it myself after it started not running due to expiry date.

--
P2 400 MHz, 128 MB, Win 98 SE

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MXB
F-prot 3.16f. I almost deleted it myself after it started not running due to expiry date.

mxb,

Hmmm... and you can still get virus definition files?

FYI, this is my old FP command line.

c:\fprot\f-prot c:\*.* /AI /nofloppy /dumb /list /archive /packed /report=fp.log
list fp.log

N

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ndebord

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MXB
F-prot 3.16f. I almost deleted it myself after it started not running due to expiry date.

mxb,

Hmmm... and you can still get virus definition files?

FYI, this is my old FP command line.

c:\fprot\f-prot c:\*.* /AI /nofloppy /dumb /list /archive /packed /report=fp.log
list fp.log

No, the latest def files were from Feb. 1, 2008.

--
P2 400 MHz, 128 MB, Win 98 SE

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MXB

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ndebord

Quote
MXB
F-prot 3.16f. I almost deleted it myself after it started not running due to expiry date.

mxb,

Hmmm... and you can still get virus definition files?

FYI, this is my old FP command line.

c:\fprot\f-prot c:\*.* /AI /nofloppy /dumb /list /archive /packed /report=fp.log
list fp.log

No, the latest def files were from Feb. 1, 2008.

mxb,

Ah well, too bad.. I really liked F-Prot (in the day)!

N



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2011 12:09PM by ndebord.

nohttpd v2.1.0 a mini web server to return 404 if you use a HOSTS file to redir stuff to 127.0.0.1 so as to possibly speed up browsing. Feels faster to me Don't seem to see those lags when a page has been mostly loaded but the green bar still shows (I turned the throbber off, ha!)

Not security per se but an adjunct. No use with Opera for some odd reason but provides good service with K-M!

--
P2 400 MHz, 128 MB, Win 98 SE