It's definitely scary. I was also curious about this too.

I recall reading this article about a Windows OS's, so-called, "survival time" without a Anti-virus or firewall.

I was concerned about this because it mentioned that... a Windows based XP OS can be "hacked" within half an hour without a firewall.
It also said that that's a inadequate amount of time to shield yourself... since Windows Updates can't patch within that time period.

So basically, it's not enough time for Windows Update to fully patch you during that time period. So it's "likely" to get hacked?

Opinions? Thanks.

A good example of this would be to put W2k on the internet even with SP4

Or the eartlier pre sp2 windows xp with firewall off by default

I would shorten the infection time to as little as 5 minutes tho

All this is alleviated by applying downloaded sp's and rollups before connecting to the internet

Or using a good hardware NAT firewall in a router till you can get to windows update

Or by installing a good software firewall

Thanks dachew for your opinion . I was planning to have ZoneAlarm Free 7 ready on a flashdrive before connected to the Internet with my DSL modem. Even a T1 connection cannot patch and download that fast.

It's just tedious... to look for each update and download it.

What are your opinions about ZoneAlarm Free? Even thought it hasn't been updated in a while -.-?

I went for over a year with xp sp2, no updates, no AV, no layered protection and only windows firewall behind a cheap nat router without a hint of malware

a maliscous web page in a drive by infection just about wiped me out

I see a lot of people running AV and software 2 way firewalls that get terminally infected from operator errors.

I am simply stating facts, no opinions are involved

the best updates are those slipstreamed into the install cd, this going to microsoft for countless(93plus) patches is for the birds with sp2

An OS shouldn't be a patch work quilt

Why no layered protection? Was Microsoft Updates just too much work for you? Or was this a test machine?

Operator errors? Can you explain?

Formatting should be another year or so for me.

Yea, I agree. Even the best protection with lots of money won't protect you. No AV or browser is invincible. I see a lot of people paying so much for memory hogging Internet Security software. It's just up to user decision. And it's up to user decision whether what goes into the PC.

I had just gone thru a period of using norton's, spybot's teatimer and windows updates(some wmi? one) and crashed several
computers where I had to uninstall reinstall several apps or even reload windows fresh

Malware wasn't as bad back then, maliscous web pages a lot lamer

I tried running naked since I thought safe hex would protect me, if I had known about firefox with noscript I could have made it 2 1/2 yrs that way

I prefer a computer that's fast and efficient

Avira and winpatrol would be my choice today for layered protection, I could reload a computer every 3 months for the time saved with
a bloated down secure machine

Not all people have that luxury



Having teatimer resident and answering a request wrong, going to warez pages with IE or FF, loading the wrong codec for some porn,
using P2P to obtain programs, loading too many conflicting security programs, the list is endless, 60+ running processes



This post has been edited by DaChew: Jun 8 2008, 11:44 AM

Do you use the computer for personal use like web browsing and word processing. Then I believe that you shouldn't need anything more than a Pentium 4 for Windows XP.

Duo Core processors may be quite faster and efficient that Pentium 4's, but you won't notice the difference if you use the computer just for that.

What are your opinions for a good AV and firewall?

What about registry compactors?

I had no trouble with Microsoft Updates. Just that I found Norton a bloatload and was tedious to "tame". It takes around like 7 start-up entries and around 5 processes once the PC boots up. And the Internet Security are just to expensive. And it rips people off. Just's gonna make people more paranoid.

I'm not the type of person to load my Firefox with colorful themes and add-ons. I'm just simple. I limit it to a SiteAdvisor, AdBlock, plus a theme.
I also limit my start-up entries to 5.

I don't even bother knowing why users visit crack sites and warez. They're just purposely risking the computer. After finding that it doesn't work, pop-ups happening, and then they start grieving and getting upset. Nervous, frustration and all that.

I do a lot of multitasking with an old OC'd amd64 single core and only 512 megs of very fast ram

I might be doing a video conversion in low priority mode, burn a dvd and surf a few forums at the same time

My normal online mode

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_06\bin\jusched.exe
C:\Program Files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe

Firefox with noscript for any questionable web site

NAT firewall and windows firewall

Spybot immunize

Frequent scans with SAS and MBAM

Windows fully updated, java, flash etc

Safe hex and vigilance are worth more than all the other safeguards combined

I did trip onto a bad banner ad on a usually well behaved web site last week and had 18 IE popups in a few seconds, I shut down quickly and ran updated scans, came up squeaky clean but raised hell with the web site

You might wanna add Adblock+ and Flashblock. No more pesky banner's/ad's/auto-starting flash's etc etc (and of course still use noscript.)

you read my mind, thanks

Abydos, I just started using NoScript and I found it tedious. I had to constantly allow or temporarily allow a cookie or the site itself just to be able to click on a tab. I was on SaferNetworking Forums yesterday with NoScript and I couldn't even change my font without configuring NoScript!
I'll think about FlashBlock.

DaChew: My Pentium 4 works fine, just work processing and web browsing for everyday tasks.
---
Log created by WinPatrol PLUS version 15.0.2008.0:15.0.2008.0
Scan saved at 9:32:04 PM, on 6/10/2008
Platform: Windows XP SP3 Home Edition Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer (7.00.6000.16674)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ZoneLabs\vsmon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\ALWIL SOFTWARE\Avast4\aswUpdSv.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\ALWIL SOFTWARE\Avast4\ashServ.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\AGRSMMSG.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\BILLP STUDIOS\WINPATROL\WINPATROL.EXE
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashDisp.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\ZONE LABS\ZONEALARM\zlclient.exe
C:\Program Files\Comodo\CBOClean\BOC426.EXE
C:\PROGRAM FILES\Comodo\CBOClean\BOCore.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\ALWIL SOFTWARE\Avast4\ashWebSv.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\MOZILLA FIREFOX\firefox.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\wuauclt.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\BILLP STUDIOS\WINPATROL\WINPATROLEX.EXE
--

I read some articles at dozleng (Calender of Updates) about the malware scanning. Conclusion was that many (including Spybot and Windows Defender) did poorly in detecting the threats.

A-Squared detected more than half of the threats and it detected the most. SuperAntiSpyware was the only one to detect the hidden rootkit.

Spybot-SD 1.6 is a upcoming release. Heard it was going to be much faster.

Hey Eric

Well, for me its a small price to pay. In return I am being able
to decide which and what script should be run in my browser.
With Noscript, you would never by mistake be able to click
banner's with exe. codes, weird AD's with redirects etc. etc.
"Funny" Java-scripts are also blocked.

From a security point of view, this is very effective.
It took me awhile to get used to, now I don't even think
about it. If I want to inspect or search a site further, I only
need to enable temporarily permission from noscript for the
main-site. Mostly thats the only one you need to enable. Of course, if
a site links to a embedded video, say YouTube, you need to
activate that also, if you want to see the video that is
Sites you visit often, and deems safe (Never can be to sure tho),
just enable "allow" instead of "temporarily allow". Noscript will
remember this setting, so you don't have to define permissions
from time to time.

In the options section, you further have the option to define trusted
sites which should always be allowed to run scripts, just like the
trusted zone in IE. Here it just called "whitelist". Theres a lot more
to Noscript that meets the eye. Try browse around in options, so you
get a feeling of what it does, and what it can do to meet your needs.

Abydos

This post has been edited by Abydos: Jun 10 2008, 08:07 PM

AV

Freeware:
Avast
AVG
Avira Anti-Vir

Non-Freeware
Kaspersky
(Nod32 as outsider)

Firewall

Freeware:

Comodo Firewall Pro.3.0
Keiro Firewall from Sunbelt
Online Armor

Non-Freeware
None (Comodo and Online Armor would still be first choice)

Those are just my picks. I'm sure a lot of people will agree and disagree

Abydos: Aye, I use avast! 4 on my personal PC. I found AVG 8.0 to be somewhat "lacking". The process, avgrsx.exe, constantly took up 50MB of RAM when the computer idle. Thus, I migrated to avast!, a ex-AVG user. I also found that AVG 8.0 constantly found false positives from SpywareBlaster and Spybot-SD's immunization.

Abydos... you wouldn't suggest ZoneAlarm?
I have used Comodo once... it was weeks ago. I got nagged to death from the DEFENSE +. It constantly told me that this process and that process need this and that. *sigh. I could disable DEFENSE + correct?

I have never tried Online Armor. I'm not sure of it's true potential.

This post has been edited by Eric L.: Jun 11 2008, 06:08 PM