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DMFParadox -> RE: Adware Problem (2/3/2009 11:04:22 PM)
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A mac is not an answer. What people don't usually figure out is that you don't need a virus/trojan/whatev to hack a mac; it's easy enough to just get root access and use the machine's own software to do what you want. This fact as you can guess skews the statistics on malicious attacks somewhat. Bad things happen on macs and there are no signs to figure out what's happening other than a fever and coughing. It's like having AIDS before they discovered the retrovirus. It is fucking annoying as hell. Same goes for a lot of different Linux distros, which is a category Macs fit into more and more. And my company, which relies on Macs for our network and data storage, has regular failures and frankly baffling wierdness happen all the damned time. So I'm not armchair quarterbacking.
Still, I'm not here to get religious. A mac can be secured if you know how. A mac is neither better nor worse than a PC these days, for security or any other given quality; the only real difference imho is the TCO and personal comfort, both of which are factors that Apple and its competitors have no real control over. The playing field is far to complex to make simple value judgements.
Now as for Windows security, I AM religious. Symantec must go. Do not want. Failure antivirus is fail. Same goes twice for Mcaffee. If you use Mcaffee, I spit on your mother.
I use Avast. When it fails, I install Kaspersky to troubleshoot and then uninstall it and go back to Avast as soon as possible. I don't do this because of price point, I do it because Avast is truly a superior product for day-to-day protection, and Kaspersky is like an overbearing cop; good to have when you're in trouble, but not somebody you want to live with (if you've ever used it, you know what kind of nuisances I'm talking about). I do NOT use spybot, adaware, or anything like. I DO use Scotty. I do NOT use windows firewall. I DO use ActiveArmor firewall. I do NOT use IE OR firefox for my day-to-day browsing, I use Maxthon and Flock--which are just different enough to throw off my scent a bit if I'm on a website that has a hidden exploit. When I suspect I've been hit, I use CCleaner and Glary Utilities to see what's in my 'dead' spaces and delete it, which is good for maintenance anyway. If I see quirky browser behavior I use HijackThis!. If I've been trojan'd, I open up Opera (which for some reason always works even when my laptop is barely more than a brick) to google my active processes and Scotty/HijackThis logs until I find out what's happening to me. There are free forums where real experts will help you if you can't dig out the virus yourself.
Restore points are... questionable. I use those if I've installed benign software that destabilizes my system; I DELETE restore points if I've been hit by a virus, because they're usually one of the first things to get corrupted.
I've never lost to a virus yet, and I manage to keep my nose clean despite being obligated to frequent shady parts of the web on a daily basis as part of my job.
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