Free Computer Security in as easy as 1 - 2 - 3

Started by GAX, February 14, 2008, 12:09:01 am

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GAX

Okay, it's fairly simple actually.

First...IF YOU HAVE NORTON ANTI-VIRUS/SPYWARE/FIREWALL, DUMP IT IMMEDIATELY!

Norton is an inferior program that overcharges its customers and supplies false positives in order to make you believe it's working to make you believe it's working.

Here are the 3 things you can to secure your computer, and it's all free.

1) AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
http://free.grisoft.com
AVG Anti-Virus comes from Grisoft with the belief that security comes first, not profit.  This program is free to home users, and is an excellent anti-virus program.
2) Spybot - Search and Destroy
http://www.spybot.com
Spybot - Search and Destroy is another example of a people-come-first program.  Support comes from people who donate to the program's development, and the program itself it fairly simple to use.  It comes with a Resident Shield against system information changes (TeaTimer) and an Internet guardian that blocks bad downloads and sites (SDHelper).
3) Zonelabs Firewall
www.zonelabs.com
Free to home users, Zonelab's Firewall (Formally Zone Alert Firewall) is a powerful firewall that offers great protection against outsider threats (Hackers).

Computer Security shouldn't cost you a dime, and it's so simple, a child could be taught to do this.

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Valcos

KicckkAaassss. Didnt know Norton was so crap. Im going to change it then  :o!
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

Nortos


Sally

February 14, 2008, 06:25:50 am #3 Last Edit: February 14, 2008, 06:34:39 am by Susys
i was told downloadng anti-viruses were bad but becouse u l say its good il dwonload AVG :) thanks

ok, downloading AVG then im going to try to fix it and if it dosent work ill try spybot...

GAX

Downloading anti-virus programs isn't bad at all honestly.  The problem is that many people create false programs, or they'll take an existing anti-virus that has a good reputation and inject some malicious code into it, turning the program itself into a virus/malware/spyware. It's always a good idea to conduct your own research regarding different anti-virus programs before downloading anything, and you should exercise extreme caution regarding "Security Programs" that are advertised in popup messages (Whether they be Windows Popup Bubbles or popup windows on the internet).

A few simple rules regarding internet-advertised security programs:
1) Be extremely cautious of security programs advertised in banner ads and popups, as most of these will end up causing harm to your system.
2) If you're being charged to use the program, while the official site for the program says it's free, the version you are likely seeing is a scam.
3) If research regarding a program turns up positive (Program is legitimate), then only use download links supplied by the official company/company site.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Calintz

Thank you GAX. My subscription with McAfee ran out, and I've been looking for something that works well, and costs little. Better yet, these are free!! Thank you.

Sally

February 14, 2008, 04:59:36 pm #6 Last Edit: February 14, 2008, 05:01:51 pm by Susys
AVG is detecting,
C:\windows\system32\tiguinhb


as a bad thing can u guys see if u have that in your system32 folder?


downloadiong spybot...

Calintz

I just checked my System32 folder, and I DO NOT have that file in there...

GAX

Usually viruses end up affecting your registry (This is more common to Spyware though) or  core system folders.

AVG wont delete anything crucial, like a kernel file.

@Calanitz
Glad I could help, I'm just sick of hearing people get ripped off by the big-name companies when there are better alternatives that don't cost a dime.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Calintz

Exactly! Thats why I wasn't really willing to renew another year with McAfee...

Sally

February 14, 2008, 10:36:36 pm #10 Last Edit: February 14, 2008, 10:38:18 pm by Susys
Quote from: Calintz16438 on February 14, 2008, 05:18:01 pm
I just checked my System32 folder, and I DO NOT have that file in there...


QuoteAVG wont delete anything crucial, like a kernel file.


what do i sgest i do? MY COMPUTER IS FUCKED SO BADLY T__Ti know it is... im runnign a scan wiAVG now wile i sleep HOPEFULLY it will fix this! :)

and whewnever i open ie it pps up a pop up... just 1

Calintz

Sounds like you were doing something naughty!!

Sally

lol... i always do something nauty but this time... i diddent...

i cant tell  u what tho.. i dont want everyone to know..

GAX

You just have to be careful about where you surf.
Be wary of what you download, like if a website you don't trust wants you to install an ActiveX control, or if a popup asks you to download something and you don't know exactly what it is.

It's amazing, because these days, Common Sense in computing is becoming an Oxymoron, but luckily there are people like me who can help out in instilling some knowledge on how to keep yourself safe on the net.

;D ;D

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Sally

hehe you should make a rly long topic about hints and tips and FAQs about how to be saf on the internet... but please dont put it in paragraf form lol i hate reading that :P make it like bulets

Calintz

That's why I just dwnloaded the free Mcafee Site Advisor...Let's you know if the site might be harmful...If so, GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!!! Lol

legacyblade

I agree, norton is crap! I had a virus for months, then I switched to AVG. My computer was as fixed as that messed up hard drive would allow.

GAX

Yeah, I'm currently attempting to get my school district to go to using AVG under an education license, since it'd help computers speed up since we're currently using a symantec (Norton) anti-virus.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Sally

why dose a school need protection? tudents cant doi anything on the computers...

Nortos

Emails? I don't know how much at your schools internet is blocked but I can see a few ways to put viruses on them

GAX

lol, it's gotta do with the fact that most of my school knows how to bypass filters via proxy, and a few of the others know how to actually crash the filter in the server.  It's hillarious sometimes, I got buddies who like to just cause the school's internet to go down for a while, just for kicks.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Sally

oh well they block,

game sites
email sites
etc...

and you cant go into the control panel or my computer or download anything... the USB ports r blocked and need a key to open it and same as the CD thing.

Nortos

you don't use USB's that sucks like every kid at our school has one and they keep work on it esepcially yr 11/12

Sally

yeah i have a thumb drive 2 gigs ^^ but im not alloud to use it :( kuz they block it... its stupid the security in my school is crazy

Nortos

they ban certain peoples logins at our school if caught doing stuff on USB's they shouldn't be though

Sally


GAX

My school is pretty liberal when it comes to what we can do on the computers.  We don't have individual logins, we can bring in CDs and Flashdrives and just use them, but they've got a few programs that screw us over...shit like DeepFreeze (Resets the computer to a pre-saved setup when the PC is restarted), and the server has "Websense" (More like Nosense) to block sites.  They also use Vision to selectively monitor our computers, take control of them, and even block our net (One of my friends has a teacher on probation because the teacher used Vision to steal and delete information from his flashdrive).  The computers are also unable to be put in Administrator mode (Through backdoors or anything).

Some teachers (The ones who actually have brains and have maintained individuality from the district borganism) have started speaking out against network limitations, mainly arguing over the fact that the internet is free domain and no one should be allowed to censor stuff as they see fit (Example:  Blocking porn = Okay, Blocking all videos = bad).  Hopefully the dumbfucks at the district will actually learn and they'll become a little less strict...I mean, I know science teachers who are pissed that we have to find/make new proxies just to get on Youtube.

Little advice:  Look through your school rules and see if there's anything regarding student petition.  If you wanna get a rule changed, that's how to go.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Sally


Nortos

why? Porns for people who can't get action...>.>

GAX

February 18, 2008, 12:29:50 am #29 Last Edit: February 18, 2008, 02:25:09 pm by Susys
Well...there's always the stash in the mod fo...I've said too much...

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Blizzard

Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Sally

February 18, 2008, 02:25:21 pm #31 Last Edit: February 18, 2008, 02:26:31 pm by Susys
Quote from: GuardianAngelX72 on February 18, 2008, 12:29:50 am
Well...there's always the stash in the mod fo...I've said too much...


lol


lol...
Quote from: Nortos on February 18, 2008, 12:27:50 am
why? Porns for people who can't get action...>.>


it was a joke.

GAX

I'm curious as to NOD32, but I can't find a free version on their site.  The programs in this list are all free, thus why they're in the list.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Blizzard

LOL FREE!

It's not free, but it's damn worth the money.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Fantasist

One thing I absolutely HATE about Norton... it takes a LOT of you're system resources, like Vista's Aero, or probably worse.

PS: Really nice thread GAX :D
Do you like ambient/electronic music? Then you should promote a talented artist! Help out here. (I'm serious. Just listen to his work at least!)


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GAX

I've developed a stronger hate for Norton these days.  My friend's dad bought her a laptop.  Well, it wasn't so bad as to the fact that it was an Acer with half a gig of ram and Windows Vista, but that is also had Norton installed, a bunch of these "performance" programs, some crappy theme changers, and of course, Aero.  The combined resource hogging of all these programs were the death of the laptop until I started fucking with it, and the thing runs fairly well now (Although it needs a RAM upgrade badly).  Going back on topic...as Blizzard has already done, you could submit new programs for the list, along side your own evaluation.  Btw, I have a friend who uses NOD32 and I may add it to the list, although it's likely to be the only pay-to-use program that will appear here.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Fantasist

Free utilities... Well, not as useful as an anti-virus program but CCleaner is one of my favs. It's like a cleanup manager for everything like recycle bin, temp files, lots of other stuff I can't remember now (haven't used it in a while), and even cleaning of things like MRUs from programs like MS Office, Adobe apps, IE, Firefox, (Opera?), and... many other things. It also has a registry cleaner, but I don't use it. Registry doesn't need much cleaning imo. It never caused me any problems in my 4-6 months of usage.
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GAX

I'll add CCleaner later on when the rest of my brain is on...that was the program I forgot to add...

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Calintz


Blizzard

Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Sally

oooo... :P lol, my dad gave me my computer back and its all fixed n' stuff!! :) just i cant get IE to work, SOOOO FF!!! i downloaded it awile ago and OMG ITS SO A COOL!!! :) i luv it! :) i download skins and stuffs its good why diddent u tell me befor blizzard?? :)

GAX

I use this Bloody Japan skin for my FF, and it fits perfectly with the CP website...since it's Black, Red, and White

...I need to skin my WinXP next.

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Fantasist

I started using Opera about a month ago, and if you think FF is good... ;)
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Valcos

Which one is the best tho!?!? :-\ I got IE. I dont think its bad tho but apparently there is others alot better?!   ???
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

Blizzard

Opera is the best in security, FF the best in functionality. IE pretty much fails at everything else, except that it's a bit better in security than FF, because FF has all those plugins which can cause issues.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Valcos

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

GAX

Well, I find FF to be pretty useful (Even though I predominately use IE), mainly because FF is open for modification.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Blizzard

Opera or FF. Avoid IE. I personall prefer Opera due to the security factor and since I don't need any fancy plugins.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Fantasist

Yeah, and Opera's full of eye-candy to make you get high on watching (at least in the beginning) :)
Do you like ambient/electronic music? Then you should promote a talented artist! Help out here. (I'm serious. Just listen to his work at least!)


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Sally


Valcos

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

GAX


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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.

Valcos

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

Spoofus



My Blog site I am working on: http://spoofus.weebly.com/

Chaze007

Always I Wanna Be With You! Make Believe With You!

Valcos

Quote from: Fallen Star on February 23, 2008, 08:29:59 pm
ahhhh


:-\...I dont think you can just say that as a post ??? Its kinda just a waste of a post  :-\
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

Chaze007

fine, "that is very awesome i'll look into that becuz i have norton :)"
Always I Wanna Be With You! Make Believe With You!

Valcos

 ;D See thats a bit better. Im so proud of you  :P
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

Chaze007

Always I Wanna Be With You! Make Believe With You!

Fantasist

I really like this topic GAX, I already said this but I can't stop admiring this :)
Do you like ambient/electronic music? Then you should promote a talented artist! Help out here. (I'm serious. Just listen to his work at least!)


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Sally


Starrodkirby86

I lurked around this topic. As a person who faced a serious spyware virus that nearly crippled my computer (Fortunately, nothing important has been lost), I had to go to a good community that supplied me with a great cure. They suggested, after I obtained the cure, to use something that is not Internet Explorer as a web browser. Why? According to them, they stated that Internet Explorer, although not bad, so many viruses and spyware (Worms, trojans, naughties) go take the failures of IE to their advantage. I think they used FireFox or something, 'least that's what I'm using now.

Then they suggested, for a messenger, Trillian, since it's universal and worms (Or naughties) won't go because Trillian is so...private or whatever. That's all I can remember. But I do use HijackThis and Smitfraudfix to speeden up my old computer in my room. That's a pile of junk, unfortunately.

Need to find a way to speeden that up, can't defragment it and scan disk it, it fails...but I don't want to use ComboFix at all. If this seems like jabber to you, sorry, I'm a rambling piece of beeswax.

What's osu!? It's a rhythm game. Thought I should have a signature with a working rank. ;P It's now clickable!
Still Aqua's biggest fan (Or am I?).




Blizzard

It's a double-edged sword. Firefox is actually less safe than IE, but the thing is that most viruses/trojans/worm really do target IE. You're safer with Firefox than IE IMO. But you're safest with Opera. :)
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

legacyblade

Well my old comp (this comp's old hardrive) was devastated by my brother's porn sessions. My compter was so messed up, I could randomly not see certain sites, and sometimes no internet at all, although I could upload and download things via FTP. During one of my rare moments of internet, I was chatting. Someone suggested AVG. It mainly fixed my computer, and gave the inet more stability. In the end though, I had to replace the hardrive (technically, all the commercial software I'm running now is cracked, aside from Maya, since I needed keygens to get my software back, XD)

Valcos

Wow  :-\.... that must have been alot of porn  :P. I almost never watch that shit  :P. And I got Opera Downloaded NOW! ;D and I like it better than IE.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar De La Hoya

GAX

Yeah, I'd actually reccoment Opera.  At school, I have a flashdrive that uses U3, with Firefox and Opera installed because my school uses Mycrapsoft stuff so much I feel we should have a "Sponsored by Microsoft" label on our student handbooks.

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Quote from: Rule No.2Keep your signatures at reasonable size. The pictures in your signature may altogether be no more than 200kB and take up an area of 1600px2. That means 2 pictures of 400x200 are fine, one picture of 800x200 is fine and so on. Also your pictures height must not exceed 200 pixels, width can be as big as you want as long as your pictures match the other criteria. Every signature not matching this criteria is a subject of the moderator team to remove and leave this rule as message in your signature.