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Virus protection

It kinda depends on you surfing habbits.. :) In my case i'm sufficiently protected with the free Microsoft Security Essentials and the build in M$ firewall. No fuss easy on the PC's resources, basic protection and update automaticaly with windows and never ever a virus not in 10 years.

Antivirus is a global protected shared sources by antivirus program providers. All have the very same database to update from. It can't be that one has a beter database than the other, if so the World Wide Web would be vurnable and trashed in no time with tons of infected pc's.

What the programs compete with is extra services to give you the idea they are beter. But beeing beter means they provide you with services you don't actualy need. One of the most laughable services is "Scanning Outgoing E mails" Why would you use resources on this? If there is a virus in your out going e mail than it didn't do its job in the first place because it let the virus come in without a warning. :rolleyes: Than claim you are beter than others? You must be joking..

Does and don'ts to protect yourself on the internet are.

Never visit questionable websites with free online services such as online games. Than the game might be ok, but the culprit is often in additional advertisements and or services to click.

Same goes for questionable video "winkink tube ;);) etc." The video is ok but in all heat klicking linked advertisements is dangerous.

Never use E-cards to send to friends and ask friends not to send you one. E-cards like my happy valentine " Oh I love you so much!" But you give them valid e-mail adresses and they will love you so much back to spam you.. Once you are stored in the spam bot you'll be in it for ever.

Never open E-mail attechments from unknown parties or people and never click links in e-mail text from unknown parties or people. No matter how tempting it looks, just don't.

Use 2 e-mail adresses one for serious personal contacts such as friends, family and work.. And one for web based contacts such as forums, webshops online services etc. For example use M$ Outlook for serious messaging and Gmail for other crappy stuff that aint serious. This way you keep your serious e-mail adress in a small and serious party.

Be very aware for phishing mails, they are popular nowadays but almost all contain obvious flaws giving away it aint real.
And they always ask sensitive personal data and you need to log in for it. Info that actualy never will be asked via e-mail for example from your Bank account. They never send mails for personal info but always will send you a personal letter if its necessary. Goes for all official entities such as energy providers, medical centres etc.

Never open attachments and or links send by messenger services msn messenger or facebook chat even if you think to know the sender. Ask them personal if they sended it first and why?

Never use hacked (free) software that you normaly need to pay for. :) Hackers don't work for free to serve humanity..
99% of them install backdoors to obtain and sell data.

For the rest any antivirus program is like law inforcement, they always run a step behind. First you need to invent the crime before the can and will create a law against it. So the (smart) criminals always come first. Than antivirus developers are lucky with employees thinking like criminals. You can do little about it, you never will be 100% safe.. But still as said Antivirus programs have a globaly shared security knowledge centre.

Passwords are a laugh, anything incrypted can be decrypted.. There are hacking tools available that hack a regular 6 digit password in less than a minute with about any character you can think of. What you can do is extend the time to hack it with creating long passwords preferable longer than 19 characters, the longer the password the longer it takes to decrypt it. Than rather use a phrase from a popular song than your sons birthdate. But if you are not a millionair with a huge public fan croud you have little to worry about. Why would one go through all the hassle to hack you and find nothing. :thumbup:
 
I second windows defender. Best protection is to control your surfing habits ..dodgy site increase the risk of malware and viruses. Don't install anything unknown, be wary of unsolicited emails and you should be ok.

If you really want to part with cash...norton for about £20 from Argos is a safe bet.
 
Thank you all for your input especially zozo for putting in a lot of work which made sense to me
I’ll just make sure defender is up to date

As for the dodgy websites, if I were to visit any I’d do it on my phone rather than the pc connected to the lounge tv




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You're welcome, reading it back it actualy looks like a lot.. But it didn't feel like it. I guess it's autopilot repetition after a decade IT employee. Than once people know how to find you, cleaning infected computers in the private sector is almost a daily side job.

Funny is most people that get infected, don't realize they bring a crashed computer with all evidence intact. Easily accesible data to find why and how they got infected. And 90% of the cases it are computers handled by kids unpatiently klicking around like mad on free game sites. Or dirty (old) men visiting and clicking around on dodgy websites with anticipation and to much imagination.

:) Every Url and or picture viewed are stored in temp folders and can be traced back for months, even when deleted i can call it back and and show them. And that was what made it so much fun to do.. For some i did and other i respectfully silenced it. But that was fun, seeing their faces when confronted.. :lol: Such is my girlfriends dad.. :lol: Dirty blahblahblahblahblahblahblah... :peeking:
 
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I use Windows defender at home, not had any issues, just works. Equivalent Windows Security Essentials on my Windows server.

At work we use Eset, which works well. Blocks dodgy email attachments and dodgy websites (normally dodgy automatic downloads from WebAd's, coin miner type things). Also, as a operating system software developer allows me to temporarily disable it, choose how USB sticks behave and doesn't interfere with Virtual Machines.

I also now use Eset on my phone, £9.99 a year. Caught one dodgy app, downloaded a "print to HP printer" app and it didn't like the fact that the app was attempting to download fonts that were not fonts but further programmes, including some "dodgies". This app is no longer available for download. As a test, I loaded the standard virus Eicar test file onto my phones uSD card using a computer (after disabling the antivirus to allow the file to be access !!), put card into my phone, Eset found it and quarantined it. Nice.
 
Been using Total Security 360 for a few years now and its great, also for a small fee you have premium for up to 3 devices.

Link: https://www.360totalsecurity.com/en/

It also has many cleanup tools for your system, which free up space and make booting times faster ;)
 
Imho for a home computer and not beeing a professional and not having IT background you beter keep it free, basic and lite on the memory and CPU resources.

Professional security software is developped for bussines networks that use mainly pc's that only do e-mail, text files and data base access for company use. Most of the time the rest is dissabled and or blocked for security reasons. Than the PC has resources enough to build a Chinese wall, scan the crap out of everything and spend 60% of its resources on security to protect sensitive company data. Bussines networks are likely to become targets by hackers and script kidies to get to this data or just to make a statement. No wonder they need heavy protection.

But for a home pc that is oftenly used for Gaming, Photo and Video editing, Downloading and watching blueray movies etc. etc. Than you are in a disadvantage with an over the top licenced professional security software to scan everything there possibly is to scan 3 x over again. Eating all recources mean while lagging your photo editing software or what so ever.

Than handling and or setting up a proffesional security software and in most casses also the shareware home version spinoffs from it. To name a few, Norton, McAfee, Sophos and many more. You actualy almost need to be a professional to know what you are doing to get the best out of it and customize it to your home needs. They are fully dressed and by default set to protect Semi professional Home Networks. But home is home and its simply fully dressed preinstalled on any home version with a free 1 year license without questions asked and little understandable info given. And you have to deal with it.

And then you use it on a stand alone PC without any IT background protected to the theet as if you are in fort knox with nothing to get to.

And the more bells and whistles it has, to more resourses it uses and the more can go sideways crashing your system.

Take for example a factory preinstalled licensed version of Norton. Ask the regular home user if he/she knows how to uninstall it after the license expired. They can't, it is protected against it, it doesn't work any longer and you can't get rid of it either. Not without asking the question and they didn't tell you up front, it's up to you to think of it. But they keep nagging you to buy a new licence at every startup and in between. Than you have to go the Norton website ask and or search for the removal tool and download it. And with using this you can uninstall it and switch to another program.

Makes me wonder, what are they realy protecting.. Their bussines or the PC it's installed on?
 
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Hi all,
Been using Total Security 360 for a few years now
I've used this at home for the last ~5 years, following Paulo's recommendation.
I use Windows defender at home, not had any issues, just works
I use this on some of the lap-tops, as long as keep Windows updated it does a good job.

At work we have McAfee.

cheers Darrel
 
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