IMHO you are being naive - the last virus I got I didn't realise was even there until I noticed the data light on my modem flashing when I wasn't surfing the net.My computer was doing something online without any obvious side effects so I hadn't picked it up!

 

You must be the luckiest person alive then.

 

I'm not naive, just experienced, it's nothing to do with luck I've used all my PC's in this way. My current PC is working 100% perfectly, and always has been. As I've said several times, I do an online scan via Panda and run MS Antispyware now and again. My point is, if you're a power user I don't see the need in having AV apps and sware firewalls installed permanently, as long as your connection is secure, in my case via the router's firewall.

 

Our work pc's are connected to the internet via a netgear router (with firewall) along with Norton AV 2004/2005 installed on all machines - yet they still get malware/adware.I also have MS antispyware installed on 2 of those machines and they still get infected? How so?

 

What has a firewall got to do with viruses? All that will stop is someone directly hacking into your system. Hardware firewalls on the router have no concept of programs accessing the internet. All you can do is open a certain port. With a software firewall installed on the pc, you can restrict access to certain programs and thus greatly improve the security, (and prevent any unknown programs - viruses for example) from accessing the internet from your machine.

If you are happy running the risk of people obtaining personal inormation from your pc then that's fine. I just don't see the point of opening yourself up to this danger when installing the virus checkers etc use so little resources as makes no difference. For example when running the doom3 benchmarks, I see little or no difference whether the virus checker is running or not. in fact, in the quick test I just did, the frame rate was actually slightly better when I had Panda running. A fluke I know, but at least it showns that it's not adversely affecting anything...

 

If you are right you would have thought an "experienced power user" would know this

 

My point exactly. I don't understand why any "experienced power user" would not want one installed. It just doesn't make sense not to...

 

As Iain Young said, a harware firewall will let any virus in if you click a link to download it, not on purpose of course but with some websites you never know, a NAT mechanism will deny all incoming traffic by default but records outgoing traffic allowing paths back to your computer. personally I use a hardware firewall also but I always run AV software on my machine. You can tighten outgoing security on routers only allowing certains ports out which also helps but I would defo always use AV on my machine.

 

i use blackice and avast, both seem pretty good

 

Prolly due to ure users connecting to dodgy websites 24/7. They're using IE without an ad blocker right?

 

Not necessarily. There was recently an exploit found in firefox that allowed low level access to the system, so you cannot rely on any browser to be secure (even with ad blockers installed).

It is also possible to hack into a web site (which for example you would have thought was secure) and infect it with nasty stuff. So, you go and visit it thinking that it's nice and secure because you have been there many times before, only to be infected on this new visit.

There are so many devious ways that these things can get onto your computer, that I cannot understand why you wouldn't want some sort of protection installed. I know you claim to be a power user, but it's so easy to lapse your security when doing everything manually (especially when you're tired for example)...

 

Ugh I goto lunch and hell breaks loose

Ok maybe I worded that badly, I didn't mean that, and of course you're right. But from my point of view, I'm confident that I'm not infected with any virus/trojan so it simply isn't going to affect me in that way. Unless of course virus technologies advance, and I get caught out by something. But I keep up to date with IT news, so I would be aware of it from other sources and prepared if necessary. Even if you do have an AV installed there's no guarantee that you're 100% protected anyway. And seeing as I've never had my security compromised in 20 odd years of computing, I don't see why I should change my ways now. On the resource front, AV's do have an impact, especially if you have them configured to scan every app/file that is used. It's really a pita on my works PC as it's set this way and all the apps are sluggish to load to say the least, mindu it is Symantec, not the best AV. At home I tried Mcafee briefly once and it definately knocked off a few fps in certain games. Anyway in a corporate environment, I can understand why it is necessary.

You can carp on about how important it is to have AV installed all you like, but this is my point of view, and I'm sticking to it

 

i turn off norton off when playing online games ,
but keep zonealarm turned on

 

That's strange. I've seen a small reduction in fps when using Norton, but neither McAfee or Panda had any deterimental effect on games at all on my machine (2.5ghz P4 with 1gb ram and an x800xtpe). Maybe it's getting towards time for you to upgrade?

 

Nah my machine is plenty fast enough, in fact its quite a bit quicker than yours.

 

I know my system is getting a bit long in the tooth now. I built it a couple of years ago, so it's getting towards time to build another one I think

It's weird though because I get no fps loss at all when running Panda (I've rerun the benchmarks to check), and I can't say I noticed any when running McAfee either. It must be conflicting with something in your system I guess...

 

So you want me to link you to an auction with a trojan?

hold on.......

 

These are some of the posts copied out of the eBay powerseller forum from last week...


if anyone else is trying to find this ebay scam, the best way to find it, is to click onto my car advert (no i'm not trying to get free advertising) and then click on the top of the catogory page on mercedes - it says automotive, classic, mercedes, anyway its half way down on a three day listing highlighted in purple, it says £1.00 to start and the postage section on the page says £7.00 the picture is a silver mercedes which is from the advert that finnished earlier mercedes 1960s SL - good luck everyone with reporting it.
lets make ebay a safe place too trade!
oliviarose02

----------------------------------------------------------

DAMNNNNN IT - I found it, and it automatically sent a virus to me - it is a trojan - so anyone else, beware. I am now running my anti-virus software and will fix it - but BE careful all of you - if you dont have AVS then you might be screwed. This virus is quite new, and only registered with Norton 4 days ago - suggest anyone who checked this out runs their AVS

-----------------------------

Hi Roxy - this didnt even open for me - I clicked on the auction - and Norton came up saying there was a trojan on it - and suggested I run my live update! dangerous, someone with one hell of a grudge!
EBAY - GET THIS AUCTION OFF!! IF OUR COMPUTERS ARE AFFECTED THEN WE CANT SELL - CANT SELL - YOU WONT GET ANY MONEY - NO MONEY AND THE REST OF THE PINKS WILL HAVE TO GO TOO!!!

------------------------------




I cant find the link for it at the moment because ebay have removed it by I am sure there will be more of them over the next few weeks.

 

I use McAfee. Automatic updates, and doesn't slow down the computer

 

Paranoia is great isnt it, and you call me stupid? Those posts dont really prove anything. It doesnt actually say what they clicked on to get infected, a weblink or an attachment to something else? I'm going with the latter. I cant see how you could get infected unless its running a malicious vbs script or something when you click a link. Seeing as it doesnt exist anymore as eBay were on the case, you can assume that the threat is lowrisk now, as they have probably already patched out the threat, if indeed it actually existed

 

Here you go Muppet:

item numbers - 4591918910 - 4591918911 - a classic Jaguar and Aston Martin.

Both have Trojans, please anyone with any brains dont go opening them this is for bioforger only as he seems to think they dont exist

and ebay patched out a threat...are you mad? what a prize muppet

 

Those items don't exist. I have brains by the way.

 

Thing is, the threats are always changing. My technical team found a new trojan variant on Friday - this was missed by all the major AV vendors. Also, do a search on cross site scripting viruses. These nasty little buggers are set to cause havoc, if we don't adapt our security....

 

That's because I reported them (as well as a few other people I expect) as soon as I saw the post about them in the PS eBay forum.


You have a brain? yet you try to open and find web pages with Trojans on them.................. Unbelievable! You couldn't make it up!

 

I work for an Antivirus company, I was going to perform initial analysis myself then if needed pass whatever was there to the labs. Quite believable.

 

LOL - Scooby Soon - you're picking on the wrong guy!

 

LOL Scooby Soon! you really are a prize ****.