I had Norton. It came with the computer. When that expired I didn't get any more.

This weekend I got one called Defender-Pro 5-in-1 at Wal-Mart. It was only 19.99 but rated excellent by consumer reports. It took me talking to customer service twice to get it installed. On the back of the cd were the numbers I needed, but they were labeled differently from what the software prompted me to enter. I thought that was silly. Finally it is loaded and installed. Then it had to update for over two hours. That is finally finished and I'm doing my first ever scan. SpyWare found three things to delete. Virus scan found one to start with and deleted it, and has now found six...count em SIX dangerous objects and it is only 25% done. It's gonna be scanning for another two hours or so, it says. The firewall was very thorough and I had to give it permission to open Yahoo Messenger, then I had to give it permission to let me log in, but that was just the first time. Now it knows what I expect of it.

I don't know what the six dangerous objects are and won't know until it finishes. The one from earlier was before I did the updates and it was some sort of backdoor trojan or something.

I don't know where others have visited on this computer, but I don't visit sites that I would consider questionable, yet I have this STUFF that needs removing. Of course, I've not had virus protection for over three years and there's been lots of opportunity for invasion.

Anyway...rambling. Kid with a new toy. I'm glad I bought it. Seems to be working so far. I do a lot of shopping online and I think this was a good thing to do, just to protect myself.

Just out of curiosity...What do you all use, if you use anything at all?


Stacye

I have Norton, came with the computer and I've just re-purchased online every year. Reasonably priced and does a good job. The virus definitions update weekly and I've got it programmed to scan in the wee early morning hours.

I have ZoneAlarm for a firewall, it is excellent and I also renew my subscription for it annually. It acts much as you said yours did, but for every program that attempts to connect to the Internet or do anything at all suspicious. And you'd just be surprised at some of the unsafe settings and programs a computer can have or obtain. After getting my wireless keyboard and mouse, one of the programs was trying to monitor keystrokes and clicks. That sounded very dangerous to me, blocked it right away and forever.

I have a couple of different spyware programs, d/l'd free and usually forget about running them regularly. But Norton and ZoneAlarm both have adware and spyware protection. They run regularly, daily on Zone Alarm. Well Stacye, you've renewed my interest in security. I'll get really way off into it every so often, getting a bit paranoid, and then, when I start investigating, very fascinated and obsessed for a while.

It is a necessity these days. With identity theft and so much at risk with using credit card #s for online shopping, you really MUST be careful, cautious, savvy and protected.

That just sounds downright scary.

All in all there were seven things that needed removing, and all except a couple of spyware programs were trojans of some sort. Don't really know what that means, but that's what they were.

Stacye

Trojans are not good. Theyare malicious programs that are disguised as or embedded within legitimate software. Trojan horse attacks pose one of the most serious threats to computer security.

Trojans are executable programs, which means that when you open the file, it will perform some action(s). In Windows, executable programs have file extensions like "exe", "vbs", "com", "bat", etc.


Trojans can be spread in the guise of literally ANYTHING people find desirable, such as a free game, movie, song, etc. Victims typically downloaded the trojan from a WWW or FTP archive, got it via peer-to-peer file exchange using IRC/instant messaging/Kazaa etc., or just carelessly opened some email attachment. Trojans usually do their damage silently. The first sign of trouble is often when others tell you that you are attacking them or trying to infect them!

You must be certain of BOTH the source AND content of each file you download! In other words, you need to be sure that you trust not only the person or file server that gave you the file, but also the contents of the file itself.

Here's a link to more info that the above info came from. http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/security/trojan.html

Here's another good resource from the Norton site; but beware, you can get bogged down in all the security issues and become very paranoid and obsessed. :P I can anyway!

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcen...ojan.horse.html

I use Norton Internet Security which contains spam protection, antivirus, and firewall. It works well, but I don't recommend it unless your computer has lots of memory. It's a resource hog. In addition to that, I use the following spyware/adware monitoring programs: Spybot, AdAware, Spyware Blaster, Ewido (all free). Also, I usually go to one of reputable the freebie scan sites like Panda or Spysweeper or Microtrend or PestPatrol to ensure the others haven't missed anything. I also try to keep my HOSTS file updated, but I'm usually guilty of not checking for updates. So much to remember just to be semi-safe online.

Everyone should have some type of protection on their computer these days. There are some free antivirus programs that actually got higher ratings from the PC mags than the "pay for" programs. Avast and AVG are two of them. Zone Alarm is an excellent firewall too, and they do offer a free version as well.

Just wanted to add a note that you don't want to have more than one firewall or anti-virus running on your computer, but the adware/spyware programs complement each other nicely. There is sometimes an overlap between what the do, but I just consider that extra security. Also forgot to mention that I use MS's AntiSpyware program also, but it's a beta program and expires in July.

Stace, I keep meaning to ask you if you use or have tried Mozilla's FireFox browser. I use/love it. Seldom use Internet Explorer these days. Firefox is lightweight and fast. It can be customized with various extensions that make it more functional for each user based on their preferences. If you're interested, you can check it out here:
http://www.mozilla.com/

I've heard good things about it, but I've never used anything besides IE and I live in fear of "messing something up" if I tinker with it and not being able to fix it. I'm not nearly as computer savvy as you. How hard is it to try out, and can I change back if I don't like it, and is it possible to mess something up to where I couldn't fix it?

Stacye

Not really. No more difficult than installing your anti-virus program. You would really have to work at messing something up. And if you decide you don't like it, you can always unintstall it. AND, if you did mess up your computer, you could always do a system restore

I've pasted a partial screenshot below. You can see I've added my favorite bookmarks to the toolbar, and I'm also a member of Stumble. In the right hand corner is Smiley Xtra (now you know my secret). Check out the tabs near the top. They're all open to various websites. I can switch between them with just a click of the mouse, add/open more, or close them out individually. Could be handy if you're waiting on a really slow site to load while you read another one. And then there are various extensions you can add like AdBlock Plus and Session Saver. I think once you get used to it, you won't know how you got along without it.

Does that go along with Zoo and his "Drinking Community?"

:ROFL
Not quite. I only drink decaf coffee these days. ;)

Actually, you'd probably enjoy stumble. I just use it when I'm bored/have a little time to kill. There are some really interesting websites out there that I probably wouldn't have seen if not for this little gem. http://www.stumbleupon.com/

Sounds great, but I'll have to feel a little more sure of myself before I take that step. Something for when I'm feeling especially lucky.

QUESTION: regarding the system cleanup portion of my antivirus software...

When I ran it yesterday, it removed all the navbars from my work in Yahoo Sitebuilder. I restored them, but now I don't know what is going to happen next time I update and publish. There's files in my recycle bin that I don't recognize and I'm afraid to delete them lest they go with Sitebuilder.

Why did it do that, do you think?

Probably a false positive.

Can you publish your website to another (test) site on yahoo/geocities to check for problems? I don't know a lot about Yahoo Sitebuilder.

Gee, I don't know...

I guess next time I update, which I need badly to do, I'll just hope for the best and if it leaves me in a mess I'll go back and fix it then. If I have to I'll just add new navbars...not too big a deal.

Maybe it'll just be ok.

Stacye

Going to look at it now...

Stacye

LMK what you think.

It was cool. I stayed around there for a good little bit just playing around. Neat. I saw some very interesting stuff I probably never would have run across on my own...amazing what there is out there, isn't it?

Thanks for suggesting it.

Stacye

:cool Did you get the toolbar?

My preference include photos, animals (of course), cooking, etc. You're right, there are some amazing sites our there. As soon as you get high-speed in your area, you should look at some of the photo sites. I can't believe tere are people who possess that kind of talent and aren't working for several major publications.