Firewalls - gah!!!

[pieces o nine]

I've been a loyal Norton's customer (both platforms as client disks can come from anywhere) since they first came out with a product. But, as of this week, THEY ARE ON NOTICE!*

I again purchased the most expensive bells & smells & whistles package they could foist upon a gullible public last summer, only to have it:

(A) repeatedly turn itself off *all year*, while snottily informing me that my protection had lapsed and I had best pony up another subscription (which required me to laboriously turn it on again or even delete all and reinstall);

or

(B) (an even more infuriating possibility) *allow* itself to be repeatedly turned off by insidious infiltration agents, despite proper regular updates.


I am going to have to see the Geek Squad -- for the second time -- to have my hard drive sterilized, at significant and inconvenient expense, which chaps my ass considering Nortons was supposedly installed and active both times "BankerFox" and "Win32/Nugel.E" squirreled their way onto my hapless desktop.






Alrighty then.

I'm on XP (cannot upgrade at this time as I will lose my software and it's not in the budget to upgrade all of it at the mo.)

Norton's is right out.

What do you recommend, oh technically savvy (and uinfiltrated) siblings? Also, is there anything *I* can do to Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest scrofulous pest?l

Thanks-
-pieces o'desperately keeping teh internets turned off except quick visits to you

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* Borrowed from Stephen Colbert

[Swatopluk]

I use Bullguard on my laptop. For some reason it takes me for Swedish a lot of the time.
Otherwise no problems yet. But that does not say anything since my laptop only goes online for updates and I do teh web from my father's PC.

[Sibling DavidH]

The following are all free and have a long history of success with XP:

Firewall      Zone Alarm
Malware     Spybot S&D or Malwarebytes^*
Antivirus     AVG

All of these naturally offer free updates.

I personally know two serious computer professionals who swear by these and plenty of offices use them, including our charity.  I've always used them - except I had problems with Zone Alarm and Vista (a well-documented issue) so I pay for my AVG to get a good firewall which is not in the free version.

NB if you don't get every trace of an old antivirus out before installing another, you're in trouble.  The products' own uninstallers often fail.  There is a free program called App Remover which works like magic.

* for malware, I personally run Spybot S&D one day and Malwarebytes the next.

[The Meromorph]

Kaspersky Internet Security.
Since I found this, I haven't been penetrated once in 4 years.
When I first got it it found and fixed 4 infections that corporate Symantec, PCcillin and Avast had missed.
It is low impact, not a resource hog, and updates itself every two hours of so automatically.
I will not use anything else, now.

[Sibling DavidH]

I haven't been penetrated once in 4 years.

I'm not going to make the obvious joke.  I'll leave it to some other dirty-minded blighter.   

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I've been a loyal Norton's customer (both platforms as client disks can come from anywhere) since they first came out with a product.

Well, as they often say in MythBusters?

"There's your problem"



I have drunk the Kool-Aid, and have returned to the "fold" by embracing Microsoft's Security Essentials-- it's free if you have a legal copy of Windoze (that lovely "genuine advantage check"), and I've never had a virus in 11 years of constant high-speed internet use.

Of course, I also use Firefox with 'no script' extension, and I sit behind a hardware firewall--- NO software can be 100% safe, an inexpensive hardware 'wall is a must, in my opinion.

I'm currently using... what.. .let me check (it's in the back room) Okay, it's a Linksys, now owned by Cisco Systems.   It also happens to be my wireless router, but when I purchased it, I made sure it had a basic firewall built-in.  Most do, but not all-- and?  You have to fiddle with it's settings a bit, to get the really good firewall stuff enabled.

Link to MS Security:   http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ (best viewed in I.E. unfortunately... )

Notebook:  I do not know if this works in XP or not-- so my advice may be moot, here.

)))))))))))))))))))))))

<sub>PS.  I'm sorry you were burned by Norton-- back when it was owned by Peter Norton?  It's products were excellent-- but those were the DOS days.   Norton sold it long ago, before Windows 3.11 even.  It's been variously owned by different groups, all of whom seem to think their customers are stupid sheep, to be fleeced at any time for any reason. 

What's worse?  Norton's is all but impossible to get rid of, too-- their "uninstall" does nothing of the sort-- it simply TURNS OFF their crapware, leaving butt-loads of resident libraries IN MEMORY.   And the registry is all hosed up, too, after Norton's.

McAfee is just as bad-- and their junkware isn't even that effective.  Just TRY and remove it.... <gaaah>

Usually, to get rid of these annoying pests?  I must nuke the drive from orbit (re-install the operating system from clean CD-ROMS, onto bare-metal hard drives).</sub>   

[The Meromorph]

Really, Kaspersky is the best there is...
I also run two hardware and two software firewalls in addition to Kaspersky's firewall and AV etc. (they came with the equipment)
But Kaspersky is the really solid protection.

[Sibling DavidH]

Yes, well, Kaspersky was a chess grandmaster^* so he would be very clever. 

*I think
----------------------
My router has a firewall, too, but I've no idea how much that keeps out and how much is left for the AVG to catch.  I know it used to stop Google images until I adjusted it, so it must be doing something.
----------------------
From all I've heard, Bob's dead right about Norton.

[Lindorm]

I can only second the rubber duckie's opinion: I have never heard anything but good things said about Kaspersky AV. Another one that might be worth looking into is ESET/NOD32, which at least used to be a very competent and low-impact AV programme.  I haven't looked into it for a few years, but I do know that some users are concerned with NOD32 getting more bells and whistles, moving away from it's lean and mean heritage. Still, might be worth checking out.

Norton, Mc Afee and Panda have all have had major issues with compatibility, false alerts and  other problems.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Almost everything has been said by my siblings so my only tidbits of advice are:

OK, put some attention here.

Really.

I'm very serious about this one:

Do NOT use Internet Explorer. Nor versions 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or anything. JUST DON'T. Not only it's a slow pile of dog poo, but it has so many holes that no matter what you do, you will eventually have an infection using it.

Please pretty please, use Firefox, or Opera, or Chrome but don't use the bloody condomless version of the internet, fer pete's sake!

Also, Firefox has a number of extensions, some good, some bad, some ugly, but there is one in particular I find quite useful and potentially prophylactic: Ad Block. Not only the internet looks far more enticing with it, but many sites that try to do stuff in things like a pop-under* while you read that tasty recipe, will be prevented from their evil deeds on their tracks.

I use AVG and SpyBot SD and those are helpful, but more helpful is not introducing your computer unprotected in the wild jungle of the internet, and the way to do that is to avoid IE at all costs.

*those annoying ones that show up after you close your browser window.

[Lindorm]

Again, I can only second what Zono said. Firefox with AdBlock does make for a much nicer experience. Since AdBlock stops a ton of ads, including annoying little flash movies and strange interstitals and pop-unders, from loading, it also make for a much more stable and less bandwidth-hungry surfing.

(oh, and I must have been really tired yesterday. But don't you agree that Mero's little guy in a shell looks a bit like a rubber ducky, if you sort of squint and look at it from an angle? )

[pieces o nine]

Thanks for the suggestions, sibs. I greatly appreciate them.

I'm using NetScape for the first time ever as my Firefox is now tits-up DOA today. (I deleted any and all traces of IE long ago, and seeing it launch on its own in a new window is the dead giveaway that something has gone horribly wrong with Norton's.)

I'll be looking into Kaspersky tomorrow and will be back when the crapocaust is complete....

     

[pieces o nine]

Right.

So I've been working with stop-gap measures until this pay period to get the all-bells-&-whistles Kaspersky.  I didn't quite make it; in fact, this is being typed on the auxiliary mac as I am very close to kicking my damn PC to death just on principal.

I was on earlier today & just running my "clear" procedure before shutdown when I heard a small "click" -- I know that sound; it's another trojan dropper after all this time.

I can't get malwarebytes to execute due to a small forest of "filename or type is infected" prompts trying to load some IE-based security software/slash/prawn sites. It took for-freaking-ever to get Mozilla to load a usable window to re-download Malwarebytes, but no go.

I went out for a Trend Micro max security package (packaging mentions Cloud technology) as Kaspersky is out for many days & I am clearly not going to attempt to order it online, but the autorun will not launch it (it's infected) and I can't get either of the apps to launch directly from the cd, either. I am torn between fury and despair, now exacerbated by sitting 3 inches from the monitor to read the three point type on this Mac...   I used to be able to solve computer problems calmly and without a blink. Now I am starting to feel like an old person who cannot cope with technology changes. grrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

Any hints on how to get around this newest hurdle to load the high-end protection software? Otherwise, I have to wait for the next pay period and take the PC back to the Geeks to do this for me.         

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, sibs-

-pieces o frenzied irritation

[Bluenose]

Hi Pieces,

This may not work if the malware has been particulalry nasty, but it is worth a try.

Boot the PC up into safe mode - press f8 during the character mode part of the boot, eventually you will get a menu with several options.  Just pick the Safe mode option.

When the system has completed booting - and this is important, don't just click on any pop up window you get - you want one of them

you should get a message telling you that you are about to run Windows in safe mode and giving you the option to simply continue into Windows (Safe mode) or to restore the system to an earlier point.  Read the window carefully and choose the option that lets you restore to an earlier time.

You should then get presented with a calendar with some dates in bold.  These will be the dates for which yoursystem has a restore point.  Choose one of the dates from before when you last thought your PC was working OK.  Follow the prompts and allow the system to reboot.  You will not lose any data by doing this.

With luck it will now be back in a working state.  If this has worked, then immediately install some good A/V software and run a complete scan on your system.

Good luck, Bluenose.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Blue's advice is excellent, and I agree.

However, there is another method available, in case your PC's restore files are corrupt (as happens from time to time).

You are going to need a USB drive of some sort-- a flash, an external HD, something like that.  These are cheap enough, and a large one is not a requirement.  Anything 640 MEG or larger will do.   I'm told 1gig ones can be had for less than $2 some places (if you can find them).

Anywhoo, you need to load this little flash drive with the anti-virus software in the so-called "stand alone" mode.    If you look at any of the packages out there, they all have "emergency procedures", and include an executable version of there software that will run without being installed.

Using a clean pc or mac, copy this EXE file directly to the root directory of the flash drive-- it won't be too large-- utilize the instructions, sometimes it's several files besides the EXE, or even a whole folder of files-- no matter, it won't be large in size-- copy the whole thing into the root of the flash, and write down the name of the EXE you need to run.

Next >>power down the PC<<  then insert the flash-- this is IMPORTANT so you do not contaminate the flash contents.

Now, as Blue said, restart the PC in safe mode, instead of starting up windows, choose "command prompt".  This will, after some trundling, give you that horrible dreaded DOS BOX window-- you know, the one with the little letter "C" and the little colon and the greater-than sign?    And the slow-blinking underline for the cursor?  That one.

Now comes the fun-- you have to guess which letter your flash drive is.  In safe mode, it's typically the next available letter above the CD/DVD drive, but not always.

Fortunately, it's easy to find:  start with the letter D, by keying in "D:" and press return (without the quotes).   If the D: and the slow blink cursor appears instead of an error message?  Good.  Now see if your EXE file is there, by typing it in -- remember you wrote it's name down, right?  Now, referring to that, type it in and press return.  If you get "file not found" or "drive not ready" or similar?  Your flash is not the D drive.  Move on to the E, then the F and so on, until the file begins to run.

Once it starts-- choose to scan the C: drive, and let it do it's thing.