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I just read an article on Slashdot about how most home PC users lack security for their systems. I know I'm not most users, but what is so hard about running at least a firewall and anti-virus software? For the systems at home, I have them sitting behind the firewall in my router (I know, probably not the best solution, but it works) and AVG (again, I know it's not the best, but I can't afford anything I have to pay for, and I'm wary of big name anti-virus software (too bloated)) is part of my "Lone Wolf Special" Windows installation. I leave everything I can set to automatically update (AVG updates around 0830 every day that updates are available). I especially make sure to keep as many automatic updates activated as possible on my mom's machine. I don't use that one except for when something breaks, and I don't want either of my machines infected because of my brother doing something stupid. Firefox is installed as the default browser on all of the machines I take care of (I've even gone so far as deleting all shortcuts to iexplore.exe that I can find). I can't stand to use IE, anyway. No tabs, no themes, no extensions, and it's slower than Firefox. As far as anti-spyware/adware/what-have-you, I use a double shot of Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy.
Since I started using the Lone Wolf Special, I've yet to get any spyware on my machine that I didn't knowingly install and then promptly nuke with AA or SS&D nor have any viruses/trojans successfully implanted themselves on any of my machines (one did way back when I was still using the Win98 machine and started downloading crap faster than AVG could kill it, so I manually disconnected it from the 'Net and ran a full scan and then promptly switched the rest of the family to Mozilla while keeping the Firefox goodness to myself).
Currently, I'm testing AntiVir and have tossed ZoneAlarm on my laptop for use while I'm on campus (the article reminded me that I'm on a network I don't maintain and cannot trust because of that).
Heh, rather pointless post about security. Perhaps later I'll compile a list of everything in the Lone Wolf Special.
Since I started using the Lone Wolf Special, I've yet to get any spyware on my machine that I didn't knowingly install and then promptly nuke with AA or SS&D nor have any viruses/trojans successfully implanted themselves on any of my machines (one did way back when I was still using the Win98 machine and started downloading crap faster than AVG could kill it, so I manually disconnected it from the 'Net and ran a full scan and then promptly switched the rest of the family to Mozilla while keeping the Firefox goodness to myself).
Currently, I'm testing AntiVir and have tossed ZoneAlarm on my laptop for use while I'm on campus (the article reminded me that I'm on a network I don't maintain and cannot trust because of that).
Heh, rather pointless post about security. Perhaps later I'll compile a list of everything in the Lone Wolf Special.