Most home PCs are not secure:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/25/technology...dex.htm?cnn=yes

Read my presentation on how to secure your PC:
http://www.fezam.com/security

In other news, IE is riddled with security flaws that can sneak viruses into your system (that's the basic answer). There are plenty of other FREE browsers out there that are WAY better:

http://www.mozilla.org
-- Mozilla and Firefox are both found here and both are VERY good. Firefox is the cutting edge version. It eventually migrates into Mozilla. Mozilla is more stable. I use Mozilla, but plenty of coworkers use Firefox. Either is good.

http://www.opera.com
-- Opera claims to be the fasted browser on the planet. I've never used it, but have heard that it's good.

Download and enjoy.

CW

Funny how your presentation is best viewed using IE but you talk how bad it is.



P.S. Thanks for recommendation on SpyBot. It removed spy software two other software packages could not. First time I have been infected except for trivial (i.e. cookies) ones.

1. Great presentation - thanks!

2. The cnn.com link did not work for me

3. Can I print the entire ppt presentation, to get the pictures and notes? Is there a trick to it? I see it as a quick reference guide for me and for my adult kids when they have a question or problem.

4. What do you think of keeping all my accounts (financial and fun) and corresponding passwords, on a floppy or "thumb" drive that is secure? I literally have dozens pf passworded accounts, and having them all different is really a bitch sometimes.

5. I have XP Pro on my home PC and will see if disabling "Messanger" helps. What about deleting user accts I no longer need? This PC runs like a pig so I suspect a lot of stuff is going on in the background. I have the teenagers off MY PC now, and am considering wiping it clean and starting over. Your thoughts on that?

I have XP home on two other PCs and will check them as well.

Again, on behalf of us dillettantes... thanks!

If I asked too many questions, just tell me to go to hell!

Please do not delete as you usually do my Mac posts.

If you are having lots of problems with security, think about a Mac.
There are no malware programs. There is no need for adaware, etc. I haven't had any antivirus prohgram on my mac at all for years. Safari and Firefox have built in pop-up blockers. The spam filter in Mail.app is good and there are several free addon filter programs. About 12-20 spams a day get through the ISP filter and they all go to my junk folder. OSX has a built in firewall.


I have to shake my head at all the posts about cleaning your PC. Why waste your time. i never have to do any of that.

1. No problem. I actually teach the class again on the 9th.

2. CNN removes articles after awhile. That one's apparantly gone now

3. PM me and I'll email it to you when I'm done updating it for the 9th.

4. The problem with putting all of your passwords on a thumb drive is what happens if you lose it or it's stolen? Will you be able to get into all of your accounts to change the passwords before others access them? It's better than writing them down, and it's better than picking bad passwords though.

Some people where I work are looking at this software:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/passwordsafe/

I havn't looked at it yet (hopefully will this weekend if I have time). That'd be another option.

5. Deleting user accounts you're not using is always a good idea, but it probably won't speed up your computer. In general, with Windows it's usually a good idea to reinstall the OS after a couple of years -- things start to slow down with changes to the registry, and reinstalling cleans that all up. It's sometimes a hassle, but it's not as hard as some people think.

Hope that helps some.

CW

How many virus's or malware programs do you hear about on VAX or Comodore 64? My old TI-99 doesn't have that problem either. Why? Because nobody bothers to write the stuff for them. Microsoft Windows is the predominant (near monopolistic) operating system around the world, and as such it has a gigantic bullseye painted on it.

don't let the false sense of security go to your head. if Mac's or Linux/BSD start to gain a decent desktop market share, you'll start seeing more attacks on those platforms. There probably won't be as many successful attacks, but there would be some

damn you wacka, you just made me semi-defend microsoft. now i feel all dirty

Get out the steel wool and scrub!

I am sure the kickback from Bill made you feel much better

They certainly did for some government people I worked with a number of years ago; they went to a seminar where they got some "stock options" and came back with this great idea to convert to using MS for servers. I pointed it was illegal to get those options and they said it wasn't since they could only exercise it after they were out of government so I reported it. Some got mad since it was putting attention to somethng completely legal.

stock options my arse! if anything i'm gonna have to start shelling out $125 a pop to M$ so I can take tests to prove to my employers that i know what i'm talking about (see also my recent posts about MCSA/MCSE). Besides the $100k I spent on college and the on the job experience.

MCSA = $500
MCSE = $875

and thats passing on the 1st attempt

I have new laptop coming and need to know what I should do about anti virus software (none pre-installed on the machine). I have heard that the big providers like McAfee and Syamtec are the worst ones, but I have no idea why or what alternatives are better. Lots of info on the tubes, but I'd appreciate it if a couple of the techies here could explain it to me like I was six, and provide any recommendations.

Thanks

I get the Computer Associates security suite free with Time Warner. Never had anything get through. I have a firewall at my router though so that's a big part of it for me.

Used the free AVG before that but got a couple viruses it didn't detect. McAfee before that just plain sucked.

How is security for Linux operating systems and the new Google Chrome browser?

Bump.

I'm surprised nobody has answered this for you yet, B-wolf. Linux users are usually very willing to tout the security advantages of Linux. I am not a Linux user, so I will leave them to speak on the security features of the OS. I will say there are far fewer security issues with Linux computers, but I assume that a big reason for that is they aren't targeted by malware authors, due to their relatively low user base. The same was true for Apple, for many years. Now that Apple has make some advances in market share, the number of attacks against their OS has increased.

I use Chrome, and have done a little informal testing on it. It is more secure than a naked Internet Explorer. For one reason, it doesn't use ActiveX. But, as it is still a work in progress, and quite young, it doesn't have the same number of security-related addons as Firefox (or even IE7, to be honest). Last time I checked, NoScript wasn't available for Chrome, for example.

Chrome is fast, and I use it as an alternate browser...but, it doesn't have enough customization options, for my taste. For example, I can't control the tab actions the way I can with FF and IE7.

Thanks, Dean. I've been hemming and hawing a little about trying Chrome. Like you mentioned - security issues aside, the biggest reason I like Firefox is the add-ons and customization. I may give Chrome a try, just because I hear it's really fast, but then again I still need to upgrade to the latest version of Firefox.

As for the OS - I've been looking at some of those ultra-portable laptops (the 9-10" "net book" laptops) for my freelance work, and some of them come with Linux instead of a Windows OS, so I was wondering about the performance and security. I was even tossing around the idea of installing a Linux OS on my old laptop to see if it would be a little faster with the older hardware.

I have an old desktop that I would like install Linux on, but it only has 256 mb Ram, and some of that is used for graphics, so none of the standard install packages seem to work. I have been messing with a really small Linux package, but it doesn't do much. The RAM for this particular PC is too expensive to add, just to fool around, unfortunately.

The new ultra-portables are fine, I hear, and I don't think that their Lunux OS are hard to use (again, from what I hear from those who have them). I think for the little machines, with less RAM, they may even operate better than those with Windows. I'm not sure about their compatibility with your current Windows machine, but I'm guessing there wouldn't be too many issues.

Check out Chrome. It's fast to download and install, and there are addons for it...just not that many, yet. I haven't checked the new addons,in a couple of weeks, at least. I'm guessing there will be stuff like NoScirpt in short order.

Thanks, Dean-o.