SirKenin
Posts: 2994
Joined: 10/31/2004 From: Barrie, ON Canada Status: offline
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Ok.. First, you get what you pay for. Computers do not give you something for nothing, a common misconception to sell you crap. Be very careful who you buy from. Second, Windowblinds issue was not that it crashed the computer. It presented visual glitches which I did not find appealing. Actually they kind of annoyed Me, so I uninstalled it. I have NEVER actually recommended it. However, I HAVE been asked how I achieved certain looks on the computer, so I told them how I did it. It is a neat program, but they never do seem to get it right. Third, the firewall I use prevents attacks coming into the network. I have servers, printers and workstations sitting behind it. However, the Windows XP SP2 firewall is sufficient for most attacks. If someone wants to get into your system, nothing is going to stop them. You have to ask yourself what is so important that you have that they would even want to bother you. They do, after all, have better things to do. You are completely misguided about trojans. Trojans do not come through the firewall to attack you. Trojans you install yourself. That is right. Any trojan that is on your computer, you put there. No firewall can 100% compensate for user error. You have to be minimally competent. That is why Avast! coupled with Prevx1 is so important. It picks up on most of these problems when you fuck up so that you do not have to worry about a program dialing out. I have a website that I use for testing computer security programs. I will not give it out, it is extremely wicked, but it amptly detects the flaws in your thinking, Chaingang. People like you think that if you install Firefox you are immune from Internet threats, for example. Well, I put them to the test. All three browsers. ALL THREE BROWSERS FAILED. Why? Because websites are now capable of using non-conventional methods of installing malware on your computer without you even knowing it. Here is the fun part. I tested different antivirus and malware software. AVG MISSED THEM COMPLETELY. Avast! caught them and would not even let the page load. Norton failed the test as well. I did not try McAffee on that site, but it is worse than Norton. So the suggestion then? Rather than trying to put a bandaid (Zone Alarm or other firewall) on an open sore, how about trying to prevent the sore to begin with? That is when Avast! and Prevx1 come into action. Prevx1 will popup a nice little dialogue about ANYTHING that is trying to run on your computer and tell you exactly what it is. I suggest that rather than blurt out what you read and take it as gospel that you try these things for yourself. I have a dozen different antivirus packages sitting here. The ones I use the most are Panda Businessecure for My network, AVG for My laptop and Avast! for everything else. Prevx1 is a must for cleaning up the crap from my client's computers. I get clients like you all the time. The most infections I cleaned off one single computer in one afternoon was 13,000. At $50.00 an hour it is better to just start fresh, but they need to preserve the installation usually so I have to sit there and manually get rid of them.. So I get pretty pissed when someone like you comes in and says I do not know what I am talking about when I have to explain to people like you why their bill is several hundred dollars. I work fast, I know exactly where to look most the time, but still... 13k infections takes a long time to get rid of. For the average user, Avast! offers more complete protection and more advanced heuristics than AVG with a very small footprint. If you want to argue false positives, I have experience with quite a few AV programs that are well known for false positives. I have read the reviews on AV programs, and most of them are sold out bunk. Any review that tells you that Norton and Mcaffee are better than Panda/AVG/Avast!/NOD32 are smoking pot. I have worked on TONS of computers that had either Norton or Mcaffee installed that were so badly infected I could barely get them to run. PANDA and TREND MICRO cleaned them up. So... Realizing, as diligent consumers that we are, that the AV market is big business and a hotly contested market, before you blurt out unsubstantiated corporate bullshit, I suggest you get your hands in there and try it for yourself.
< Message edited by SirKenin -- 11/13/2006 9:32:57 AM >
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Hi. I don't care. Thanks. Wicca: Pretending to be an ancient religion since 1956 Catholic Church: Serving up guilt since 107 AD.
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