Firewall & what else?

[webster72n]

Somewhere I read that, if you have broadband, you need a firewall. Is that a
fact, or should everyone have it?
And what about antivirus, spyware and trojans?
My OS is Windows ME and my total disk capacity is 9.7 GB.
The question here is:
What is a must in my case and which are the best and least troublesome
applications to use?
Being certain there are several different solutions, I am willing to make my
choice.

Harry.

[Mike M]

The first must is awareness and acting safely needs to be second nature.
Unless a user is constantly alert and aware they lay themselves open
regardless of any other defences they might have. User settings are important
here, such as what can and cannot download and be run with and without user
intervention. Moving on I consider a firewall to be a must but less so for
those using a router and NAT (Network Address Translation) as I do a decent
antivirus application but more important is to keep the AV application
constantly updated. Commercial parasites can be less of a problem and
somewhat depend on the sort of sites you visit and applications you install
but at the very least serious consideration should be given to the use of
AdAware, SpyBot Search & Destroy, BHO Demon and Spyware Blaster. Again a tool
is only as good as when it was last maintained.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



webster72n > wrote:

> Somewhere I read that, if you have broadband, you need a firewall. Is
> that a fact, or should everyone have it?
> And what about antivirus, spyware and trojans?
> My OS is Windows ME and my total disk capacity is 9.7 GB.
> The question here is:
> What is a must in my case and which are the best and least troublesome
> applications to use?
> Being certain there are several different solutions, I am willing to make
> my choice.
>
> Harry.

[webster72n]

Thank you, Mike, for such good advice.
I am using an economical ISP and take it, that I should install a firewall.
Is the combination antivirus/firewall by Panda Software a good bet?
Where the others you mention are concerned, I already have all but one, the
BHO Demon.
Do I need that one too?
And aren't there alternatives for a firewall, giving you free protection,
specifically WinPatrol?
Also, how effective are "SystemCleaner" and
"Registry Mechanic" in this context?

Harry.



"Mike M" > wrote in message
...
> The first must is awareness and acting safely needs to be second nature.
> Unless a user is constantly alert and aware they lay themselves open
> regardless of any other defences they might have. User settings are
important
> here, such as what can and cannot download and be run with and without
user
> intervention. Moving on I consider a firewall to be a must but less so
for
> those using a router and NAT (Network Address Translation) as I do a
decent
> antivirus application but more important is to keep the AV application
> constantly updated. Commercial parasites can be less of a problem and
> somewhat depend on the sort of sites you visit and applications you
install
> but at the very least serious consideration should be given to the use of
> AdAware, SpyBot Search & Destroy, BHO Demon and Spyware Blaster. Again a
tool
> is only as good as when it was last maintained.
> --
> Mike Maltby MS-MVP
>
>
>
> webster72n > wrote:
>
> > Somewhere I read that, if you have broadband, you need a firewall. Is
> > that a fact, or should everyone have it?
> > And what about antivirus, spyware and trojans?
> > My OS is Windows ME and my total disk capacity is 9.7 GB.
> > The question here is:
> > What is a must in my case and which are the best and least troublesome
> > applications to use?
> > Being certain there are several different solutions, I am willing to
make
> > my choice.
> >
> > Harry.
>
>

[Mike M]

Harry,

It's not the ISP you are using but rather how you connect to that ISP and the
sort of connection. With a fast connection (cable/adsl) it is essential to
have some sort of firewall however, as I mentioned, if you are using a router
to connect a home network and the router is configured to use NAT then a
firewall is less important. If you are on dial up then a firewall is of
slightly less importance when running Win Me but personally I wouldn't run any
computer without a firewall of some sort. As to which, that has to be down to
user preferences and requirements but the free Zone Alarm isn't a bad place to
start followed by Kerio. For a few dollars more there are a number of
excellent products including Zone Alarm Pro. I would however suggest you
avoid Norton Internet Security on Win Me.

BHO Demon (and also BHO Captor) are excellent tools to help identify and
remove unwanted Browser Help Objects although hopefully with vigilant and
aware browsing one won't be picking up any such unwanted little helpers.

Personally I've never felt the need for WinPatrol, AdAware and SpyBot more
than meet my needs and I don't use or even feel the need for registry cleaners
such as SystemCleaner or Registry Mechanic and therefore won't comment
further.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



webster72n > wrote:

> Thank you, Mike, for such good advice.
> I am using an economical ISP and take it, that I should install a
> firewall. Is the combination antivirus/firewall by Panda Software a good
> bet? Where the others you mention are concerned, I already have all but
> one, the BHO Demon.
> Do I need that one too?
> And aren't there alternatives for a firewall, giving you free protection,
> specifically WinPatrol?
> Also, how effective are "SystemCleaner" and
> "Registry Mechanic" in this context?

[Rick T]

webster72n wrote:

> Somewhere I read that, if you have broadband, you need a firewall. Is that a
> fact, or should everyone have it?

Everybody who spends time surfing on the net should have a firewall.

If you have broadband then your connection is on more, has more
bandwidth to play with and your IP is (semi) static, all of which add up
to increased vulnerability.

If you're on a router, they often have firewalls built in, which takes a
load off, but it should still be supplemented with one that runs on your
computer; that one can stop and warn you of programs that are trying to
"call home" which the router-based one can't.

> And what about antivirus, spyware and trojans?

Sure. Can't hurt, often helps... while I personally don't run the "real
time" monitor options of the AV and S&A programs, preferring instead to
sweep my system once a week or so, some people swear by it.

> My OS is Windows ME and my total disk capacity is 9.7 GB.
> The question here is:
> What is a must in my case and which are the best and least troublesome
> applications to use?

I'd recommend a firewall, AV, spy/adware detectors/removers. A large
number of the postings to these groups contain links to good
pest-control programs, all of which have free-for-personal-use versions
as well as company-supported pro-versions.

I haven't done much of a survey, so can't give you a comparison of all
the programs available.


Rick

> Being certain there are several different solutions, I am willing to make my
> choice.
>
> Harry.
>

[webster72n]

The situation seems much clearer to me now, Mike.
I'll have a much better basis for making my choice.
Thanks for your input.

Harry


"Mike M" > wrote in message
...
> Harry,
>
> It's not the ISP you are using but rather how you connect to that ISP and
the
> sort of connection. With a fast connection (cable/adsl) it is essential
to
> have some sort of firewall however, as I mentioned, if you are using a
router
> to connect a home network and the router is configured to use NAT then a
> firewall is less important. If you are on dial up then a firewall is of
> slightly less importance when running Win Me but personally I wouldn't run
any
> computer without a firewall of some sort. As to which, that has to be
down to
> user preferences and requirements but the free Zone Alarm isn't a bad
place to
> start followed by Kerio. For a few dollars more there are a number of
> excellent products including Zone Alarm Pro. I would however suggest you
> avoid Norton Internet Security on Win Me.
>
> BHO Demon (and also BHO Captor) are excellent tools to help identify and
> remove unwanted Browser Help Objects although hopefully with vigilant and
> aware browsing one won't be picking up any such unwanted little helpers.
>
> Personally I've never felt the need for WinPatrol, AdAware and SpyBot more
> than meet my needs and I don't use or even feel the need for registry
cleaners
> such as SystemCleaner or Registry Mechanic and therefore won't comment
> further.
> --
> Mike Maltby MS-MVP
>
>
>
> webster72n > wrote:
>
> > Thank you, Mike, for such good advice.
> > I am using an economical ISP and take it, that I should install a
> > firewall. Is the combination antivirus/firewall by Panda Software a good
> > bet? Where the others you mention are concerned, I already have all but
> > one, the BHO Demon.
> > Do I need that one too?
> > And aren't there alternatives for a firewall, giving you free
protection,
> > specifically WinPatrol?
> > Also, how effective are "SystemCleaner" and
> > "Registry Mechanic" in this context?
>
>

[webster72n]

Every little bit of information on the subject helps in making my decisions.
Thank you for taking the time to be concerned, Rick.

Harry.


"Rick T" > wrote in message
...
> webster72n wrote:
>
> > Somewhere I read that, if you have broadband, you need a firewall. Is
that a
> > fact, or should everyone have it?
>
> Everybody who spends time surfing on the net should have a firewall.
>
> If you have broadband then your connection is on more, has more
> bandwidth to play with and your IP is (semi) static, all of which add up
> to increased vulnerability.
>
> If you're on a router, they often have firewalls built in, which takes a
> load off, but it should still be supplemented with one that runs on your
> computer; that one can stop and warn you of programs that are trying to
> "call home" which the router-based one can't.
>
> > And what about antivirus, spyware and trojans?
>
> Sure. Can't hurt, often helps... while I personally don't run the "real
> time" monitor options of the AV and S&A programs, preferring instead to
> sweep my system once a week or so, some people swear by it.
>
> > My OS is Windows ME and my total disk capacity is 9.7 GB.
> > The question here is:
> > What is a must in my case and which are the best and least troublesome
> > applications to use?
>
> I'd recommend a firewall, AV, spy/adware detectors/removers. A large
> number of the postings to these groups contain links to good
> pest-control programs, all of which have free-for-personal-use versions
> as well as company-supported pro-versions.
>
> I haven't done much of a survey, so can't give you a comparison of all
> the programs available.
>
>
> Rick
>
> > Being certain there are several different solutions, I am willing to
make my
> > choice.
> >
> > Harry.
> >

[Mike M]

Harry,

You're welcome. What choices you make have to be those with which you feel the
most comfortable. However by asking you are on the right track already as
awareness is the first lesson/rule for all of us. Over the years I've tried
various AV applications and similarly various firewalls. I've been lucky and
don't recall having had a machine that's either been hacked or infected by a
third party but that doesn't mean I'm not going to hit a problem a minute
after I make this post.

One item that I did omit to mention in my earlier posts is the importance of
having backups of some sort or other as the ability to dump a system and start
again from a backup in the event of problems can help take a lot of pressure
off a user when they hit trouble. As to how much to backup and how is a
matter for another thread (to which I probably would not respond <g>). All
that I will say is that the boxes here all have multiple drives and the
operating system partitions are kept small with data stored elsewhere. I have
what are called drive images of my OS partitions stored as files on other
drives whereas data tends to be backed up to other PCs on the network (or not
at all depending on what it is).
--
Mike M


webster72n > wrote:

> The situation seems much clearer to me now, Mike.
> I'll have a much better basis for making my choice.
> Thanks for your input.