How to protect your XP computer! (mods please sticky)

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garfunkel
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 3:57 am

How to protect your XP computer! (mods please sticky)

Post by garfunkel »

I am making this thread because i feel that there is quite a lot of forum space to be saved if there is greater awareness of how to keep a Windows PC secure, it may also help new users in keeping evil hackers' hands of your computer, if this thread dies, it dies but if it stays it may be able to help some people out. Unless you have been living under an incredibly heavy rock for the last decade, you will know how insecure Windows is, and until Microsoft gets its act into gear it is up to us consumers to protect our computers, which we spend good money on already. It is a good thing though that there are lots of free products out there that can make your life very easy and they perform much better than products such as, Mcfee, Nortan etc. If you do not want to go with the tide and change to Linux or another OS, than you have no choice but to arm your computer with the biggest guns in the security world.

All programs listed are free and are not trials.

Best Anti-Virus/Trojen Software


With over 90000 known threats, it is important to remember that just because you have a scanner, deosn't mean you are safe at all, it is vital to get the best software possible, and if feasable on your system, get two because it is like a filter, it may let through some nasties every now and then, and running something through two filters will give you better results. Remember, do not run more than one virus-scan at a time, compatability problems may arise.

ALWIL avast! Home Edition - http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
This program is fantastic, not only is its resident scanner brilliant, it is light on
resouses, free, very easy to use and scans almost every possible file. When you install this you can run it for 60 days, then you must register it for free , then it will last for another year, afterwhich you must reregister, also for free.

Grisoft AVG Free Edition - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/289/lng/us/tpl/tpl01
This program is great as well, it is light, efficient, free, powerful, but maybe not quite as good as avast! in terms of detection rates, and its interface is a bit...old, but otherwise a very highly recommended program. Deos not require registering.

AVIRA AntiVir Personal Edition - http://www.free-av.com/
Also a nice application, i have not used it much, but it is good none-the-less, I dont really know much about it, but try it out for yourself and see how it goes.

Comodo Antivirus (beta) - http://www.antivirus.comodo.com/
Another great security program that will also son have antispyware integration, it is completelt free, a tad slow at scanning but seems to clean up well. Watch out though it is a beta and as such some people have spoken of numerous crashes, for me all went well. Use at your own risk.

WARNING: this application did crash for me after a reboot. It made my computer randomly crash and run really slow. I had to remove it in safe mode and now all is OK.

Best Anti-Spyware/Adware/Malware Software

Much like Ant0Virus software it is better to have two or more so that you can have a "backup", but once again make sure you run only one at a time.

Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
This programs' specialty is the removal of spyware, if it detects anything, which is highly likely, it WILL remove it, its immunise feature is great as well. It also contains many useful tools to keep your system running at its peak and other great tools, it is a very nice program

Ad-Aware Se Personal Edition - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Good interface, bit heavy on resouces, has great detection rates and very easy to use.

Bazooka Scanner - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html
This is something very special, it may seem suss, because it scans in under a second, (not joking), but it is pretty darn good because you can run this every day and if it finds something, you can use a more powerful scanner to kill the nasties, it may not detect as much as other programs, but you cant beat its speed. It just makes protecting you system that much faster and easier.

Javacool SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
This program deos not scan for spyware, it blocks it out of your system! I protects against the installation of ActivX based software, changes to Internet Explorer/FireFox settings and restricts access to nauty sites, a must have.

Javacool SpywareGuard - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html
This application is a nice helping hand when it comes to protecting your system. It performs real time scanning, bad download prevention and many other things, bad thing about this program though is that it has not been updated in a very long time, making it have major flaws in its protection.

Windows Defender - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/securit ... fault.mspx
Windows Defender is another good utility for removing and preventing spyware. Unlike the Spybot and Adaware, this offers some real time protection, instead of wait untill infected then scan. Worthwhile download.

AVG Anti-Spyware - http://free.grisoft.com/doc/20/lng/us/tpl/v5
Yes, ok this is a trial, but after the trial has ended the program is still perfectly usable, the only thing that goes is memory scan (resident scanner) and automatic updates. This program is very easy to use, looks good and has an outstanding library of evil files it can catch, its specialty is Malware and Trojans, but it is great at everything, just about the only thing this program does not catch is viruses.

Firewalls

NetVeda Safety.net - http://www.netveda.com/consumer/safetynet.htm
A bit difficult to set up, for a newcomer, but its performance is quite outstanding.

Sygate Personal Firewall - http://www.majorgeeks.com/Sygate_Per...ree_d3356.html
Another firewall, that unfortunately is no longer updated, is Sygate personal firewall. Around winter 2005, Symantec, the company that makes norton anti-viral (If it actually removes viruses...), purchased this company. Sygate firewall was quite configurable, effective, and was low taxing on system resources.

Comodo Personal Firewall - http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
As always with firewalls it is anoying at first, asking to allow/ban acces to good programs like Firefox accessing the internet but it performs very nicely indeed, deosn't miss a beat and rates very well in leak tests. It is also completely free.

There is also ZoneAlarm however, but I would not recommend it, it seems the free edition is getting slimmer, while the pro edition is getting ever so bloated. As far as firewalls go, the choice is slim pickings.

Other

CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/
This program may not be a security product, but is is useful for "cleaning" up your system, it can also uninstall programs, check the windows registry for errors and clean you Temp/Internet files.

Mozilla Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
This is probably your best bet against any kind of nasty, if you are still using Internet Explorer, you better get your butt into gear and enjoy the added benifits of FireFox, like skins, tabbed browsing, fast rendering of pages and added security.

Mozilla Thunderbird - http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
there is no better then this e-mail application, if you are using Outlook, may god have mercy on your soul.

Merijn Hijack This - http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html
Hijack this is a simple and trusty program that identifies key areas of the registry and some parts of the hard drive that are common place for badware, you can give the log it creates to a more knowledgeable person/nerd/geek and let them see if there is anything wrong.

Ultimate Boot CD - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
One of the best Diagnostic packages ever is the Ultimate Boot CD. You can do just about anything with it, from access windows partitons from dead machines, doing HDD scans for bad hard disks, scanning for viruses, etc. The download will make an CD image, and you just have to burn it. All free.

Sysinternals Autoruns - http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html
Very similar to hijackthis, only even more thorough. highly recommended tool, especially if you know what you are doing, you can also disable viewing windows program, so you have a good idea, what is malware.

PC Wizzard/CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com/index.php
Both programs are from the same site. The purpose of PC-Wizzard to to provide all includisve hardware information about your system. Bios, Graphics, process, RAM, it lists virtually all information about your hardware. CPU-Z is targeted at the processor, RAM, and motherboard only. Great tools to findout out everything about your system, as it also read system and processor temperature in real time.

Prime 95 - http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm
The actual purpose of this software is the search for prime numbers, but it has a testing mode that can stress the system and report errors back to you. A good way to test for system stabilty, especially when overclocking, or adding new hardware. All free.


Rapboy
Posts: 649
Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 2:14 pm

Post by Rapboy »

Nice post about protecting ur pc, however i think u forgot 1 antivirus/firewall which i think is also a good one. the name is Kaspersky http://www.kaspersky.com/
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muzz@mmil
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 7:38 pm

Post by muzz@mmil »

Rapboy wrote:Nice post about protecting ur pc, however i think u forgot 1 antivirus/firewall which i think is also a good one. the name is Kaspersky http://www.kaspersky.com/
yes its a good one but the guide is on almost free ons. And Kaspersky is not a free program.
breeze
Posts: 340
Joined: Sat Mar 18, 2006 4:49 am

Post by breeze »

Thanks for the info... there were a few on there that I did not know about, and thanks to you I do now :)
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garfunkel
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 3:57 am

Post by garfunkel »

Yep, it is also a very good program, but as a previous poster said, this is a free program list, only apps that are totally free to use are included.

I originally wrote the list as i was sick of diagnosing ineffective programs and their user's problems with them. Like norton.
RoLov3r
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 2:31 pm

Post by RoLov3r »

Humm Really Nice Wor So I Will Profite
Bulletproof
Posts: 122
Joined: Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:35 pm

Post by Bulletproof »

wow this info is usefull
thnx ;) for sharing
Gyanu
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Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:03 pm
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Post by Gyanu »

yea kaspersky is laso the best antivirus to protect the PCs
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Stam
Posts: 127
Joined: Thu Mar 09, 2006 5:24 pm

Post by Stam »

Ah NOD32 is the best anti-virus by far
iBye
Posts: 720
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:39 pm

Post by iBye »

I am using F-secure atm, its really good for those, like me who are playing games and are using a lot of the processor power.
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