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A Beartooth Bullets / Shooters Forum Primer On Internet Security (http://www.beartoothbullets.com/tech_notes/archive_tech_notes.htm/54)

Mike has done a great job providing a quick, common sense guide to internet security. We continually receive inquiries here about this issue, and his advice is well founded and easy to follow!

Thanks Mike for taking the time to put this together!

Great article, Mike. I'm not in the business, but I've had a few run-ins with viruses and spyware, and here's my personal low-cost, low tech solution.

As I'm on dial-up, a hardware firewall is not an option, so I'm using Zonealarm 4.5.594 free version. This is the bare-bones, firewall only version, with no anti-virus or other additional features. While this is a disadvantage, there's less chance of conflicts with other security software, and that is a major headache. The latest release of Zonealarm, version 5.0.??? has major problems, particularly with Windows XP. You can still download version 4.5 here.
http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/1012_zl/zlsSetup_45_594_000.exe

The free version of Grisoft's AVG does the job most of the time. The only time it didn't was when the Opas virus was running wild. Zonealarm stopped Opas, after we installed it. This is a long story, but Opas doesn't come on emails, but attacks though unblocked ports, which are open by default in Windows.
Get AVG here: http://www.grisoft.com/

Ad-Aware and Spybot are free and both are better than most of the expensive spyware cleaners. Ad-Aware is a little easier to use. Spyware and popups were considered a harmless nuisance at first, but some new ones are dangerous.
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
http://security.kolla.de/ (Spybot)

Browsers. Let's face it, Internet Explorer has more holes than your target backstop, and more are found every day. As of today, Mozilla Firefox is the most secure browser. The hole reported last week was fixed with version 9.2 on Friday, but it's still open in Explorer and Opera. Firefox is free, rather basic, and slower than Opera. Both Firefox and Opera have popup blocking and good cookie management.

I use Opera 99% of the time. The default setup is cluttered, but easy to customize and clean up. If anything there's too many features. It has problems with a few badly coded sites, but there's an excellent user's forum for sorting out problems. Opera has unobtrusive ads if you don't pay for it.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://www.opera.com/

Hint. If you try Opera, make that large left-side sidebar disappear by clicking in the middle of the left margin. If you need it, click there again.

If you're getting tons of spam, get Mailwasher. I was getting over a 100 emails a day infected with the Zafi virus 2 weeks ago. As the emails it came in had a limited number of features, I was able to set up a filter and delete all of them with one click without downloading them first. That saved a LOT of on-line time.
http://www.mailwasher.net/

I don't have any personal investments in any of these programs. These are only my recommendations, based on my limited experience, and not Beartooth Bullets. Maybe Marshall and Alex have some recommendations too. (Hint, Hint)

Bye
Jack

Nike/Jack/et.al.:

Not a computer guy, but asked my brother to set up the safest possible system just for internet use...a sperate sytem.

Been about 18mo. now...has it's quirks and limitations, but seems like it's almost virus/worm proof (knock on wood...am sure thare are folks working on that).

Running Linux on a live CD system...nothing is saved unless I mount and direct it to one of two 256chips or a smaller 10MB chip...chips are expodsed and I can unplug any of them and take them away at the end of each session if desired (and transfer to the "real" machine if that seems desireable). Basically, the system boots up from the CD each time I turn it on, and shuts down without saving anything not specifically directed to detachable memory.

I make no pretense at being a computer guy...basically just show me how to work it, and I'm happy. So far this system hasn't had any problems...if infected, it loses it at each shut down and re-start.
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Do want to say, for personal use, I certainly do not miss windows.

Excellent update for the dial-up users, Jack. I'm still on Win 2000 and didn't know about XP / ZoneAlarm issues.

Ribbonstone's setup is completely bulletproof, as there's no way for a virus to attack a read-only CD.

Let's hear it from the rest of the users - I know there are some more good nuggets of information out there!!!!!

Seems that there's a lot of unhappy customers out there. Zonelabs own forum is a continuous tale of woe and you'd have to do some looking to find a lower approval rating at download.com.
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/support/userForum/userForum_agreement.jsp
http://www.download.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=zonealarm&tg=dl-2001&search.x=0&search.y=0

An earlier buggy version of Zonealarm was part of the problem we had with the Opas virus. I'd heard about how vulnerable high-speed always-on internet connections were, but I didn't know that dial-ups were susceptible too. Since the computer under attack was only connected for email, I figured that's where Opas was getting in. Now Opas won't attack a computer that isn't networked, so the average home user like me won't get hit and I wasn't getting it at home. It was just hitting my friend's 2 networked-computer small office. I would have put Zonealarm on as standard procedure if the current version wasn't buggy. I didn't understand the data on Opas, as where they said network in some places they meant the inside-the-office network and in other places they included the dial-up connection too. I finally dug up an earlier bug-free version of Zonealarm and ended the problem, but not before the virulent Opas.H came along and wiped out the hard disks. Luckily we had a tape backup.

Bye
Jack

Part of the problem - I can assure you this is very common - is people setting up network shares that are always on by default, or use trivial passwords like 'admin.'

In fact, XP won't even let you define a logon of 'admin,' it's caused such havoc.

I got one consulting job because the testers set up every machine in the lab like that, and the virus spread like wildfire and wiped them all out :(

I was using Adaware, until I got "about blank" and then "Casino" forced onto my PC. At the time, I was running Win XP Pro, Zonealarm, 12Ghosts popup killer, AdAware and a AV program. Spybot-search and destroy got rid of them both. Then I started running Mozilla Firefox, lol.
Excellent Primer!!!
AndyL
PS If you have DSL or Cable, disconnect from the Internet when not browsing, if possible.