Willis recent post “Modern Piracy” is the inspiration for the title, along with math challenged pirate marketing team. This in-your-face sales pitch to renew my Avast Antivirus popped up today on my desktop, but the piracy is in the math:
Gosh, should I really renew with a company that can’t offer sales incentives rooted in simple math? That 3 year plan is a real winner (for them) compared to annual renewal.
I think I’ll revert to the free version or use Microsoft’s free AV solution. Arrrrrr!
Anthony. you can run Windows in a virtual machine environment on Linux. It runs about as fast as thought it were running on the bare hardware. This will cover you for those apps for which there is no open source or Linux alternative. It also gives you the continuity you will need for your
work while working through the changes.
Running Linux from a bootable Live CD or DVD (say Linux Mint) means you won’t have to install it but you can still get a feel for it, without having to meddle with your Windows installation.
Virtual Box is good start for a virtual machine environment (not my favourite but it’s good enough, and it is easy to get up and running).
Others before me have offered to help with finding alternatives, perhaps you should consider taking them up on it.
You may find this interesting:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/157767,nsw-police-dont-use-windows-for-internet-banking.aspx
Microsoft owns Kaspersky Labs so they sell you Windows then sell you AV software to fix problems with Windows, taking two bites of your cherry! Running MS Windows is like the CAGW scam!
genes says:
December 30, 2012 at 10:15 am
Try Superantispyware or Malwarebytes anti-malware. Both have very good free versions and the paid versions are cheaper.
genes,
Malwarebytes is a GEM! I use paid-for versions on all my computers, because I am a pro journalist, thus the additional protection the paid versions offer is a must for me, but for privateers, the free version is perfectly fine and absolutely hassle-free.
And no, I don’t get paid by Malwarebytes for stating the above…
Preach it, sophocles!
Really, virtualize windows for anything you absolutely can’t replace with a linux version (a small list which shrinks regularly) and enjoy the lack of nonsense that comes from a proper OS. 😀
My proctored testing software won’t run in wine due to the way it is set up to attempt to monitor the system, as it expects to see windows, it just won’t see my system at all, so I just vbox a copy of XP and run it in there, amusing that it gives the proctor the ability to see what is happening in that little sandboxed OS while the only way they could see, say, the other monitor or the rest of the desktop even is if he asked me to use the webcam to show them… I suppose I could just fullscreen the Vbox, though it’s an interesting predicament as I don’t actually want to cheat since I am capable of passing on my own merits… plus I would want to get credit for getting around their system anyways.
Gotta chuckle about “high end dual processor” though, google “udroid mini pc”, I think you can get those for $89 with quad core smartphone chips now.
That’s certainly an Offer You Can Refuse, though as J Ferguson rightly notes, it’s far from being unique in that respect. (A hint for those who went through school using calculators – practice a bit of mental arithmetic, it will help you spot these ‘offers’ much more easily.)
I’m another Avast user, though only the free version, and I’m happy to say that it’s kept me trouble-free for several years with only one false positive (fortunately not mission critical). I went over to Avast after AVG started slowing my machine down too much and giving too many false positives a few years ago. I also use Spybot S&D, though probably the most immediate protection comes from being the other side of the NAT translation in the router. Malwarebytes is an excellent tool, too.
I also feel safer for having PeerBlock installed. It’s not that I have any interest in downloading the entire output of Hollywood (yeuch!), but I’ve noticed that even when you’re just p2p’ing the latest Ubuntu or whatever you still get half the media industry trying to connect to your machine to incriminate or intimidate you, both at the time and sometimes for hours or days afterwards. I do not consent to this, and it’s pleasing to watch the PeerBlock window as it blocks connections to and from them. Mine is currently blocking over 830 million IPs, some of which turn up even when just surfing, none of which has ever stopped me doing anything I wanted to.
The Linux (/Mac) advice is sound in security terms, but most of us have too much Windows software which has become essential and only ‘may’ work under Wine. C’mon ReactOS – a project to build an open-source Win32 environment. The prospect of running my preferred programs on an open system is beguiling.
I had a virus go straight through my AVG Pro which then disabled the anti-virus, firewall and Malwarebytes (which I run on demand) and prevented me from connecting up to any online scans or to use a datakey. I got rid of it using Malwarebytes “Chameleon” tool and then Microsoft Essentials. I’ve uninstalled AVG. If it let’s viruses through then I’m not paying for it.
I run a small ISP and use both Linux and WIndows servers. For fun when we brought up a new Linux box we watched the network monitors. It was probed from an Eastern Europe ip within a minute or two of coming on line. Very entertaining.
We were replacing the box because its predecessor, had been brought down by a particularly evil and malicious virus that had come through the usually innocuous statistics reporting page. It erased numerous directories, and had infected the OS to instantly spread itself through all the Linux boxes it could find as soon as it was booted. Very nasty.
Regardless of what you decide to use, keep in mind that the bad guys are always one step ahead of the good guys.
***
Blade says:
December 30, 2012 at 6:33 pm
IMHO, no Antivirus are better than any other so you might as well use a free one if you must use one at all. The real question is whether you must.
***
Glad you posted that first — network admins get mad (rightfully so for their particular situations), but some like me don’t need AVs running all the time (CPU-hog). I just manually run a free one on Win7 occasionally — never found anything except a file on the pre-installed HP junk-programs that was classed as a spy-bot.
I also use other layers like a downloadable, free, protective HOST file (it denies thousands of junk-sites) and Firefox plug-ins like tracker-blocking Ghostery and script-denying NO-Script.
Arrrrr! Keel-haul the scurvy scum!
All those Mac and LINUX proponents are sewing the seeds of their own destruction! If the market share of LINUX or MAC ever cracks the 30% level, it will finally be worthwhile for the hackers and crackers to write code to automatically break them. As it stands now, the risk/reward balance doesn’t make a good business model for the criminals so they don’t bother except out of curiosity or high value targets. It really isn’t that the machines are more secure (Macs are subject to a couple of java exploits but they are limited), it is that no one bothers to do the research since there are so few of them out there.
That said, I loaded Ubuntu on my son’s laptop since the original Windows Vista hard drive crashed and being a laptop from a company that doesn’t believe in sending OS disks I decided it was easier to just download Ubuntu for free.
***
Blade says:
December 30, 2012 at 6:33 pm
There is no excuse to ever plug the computer directly into a cable or DSL or FIOS modem because that will give you a static IP and it is just a matter of time before you are toast. If that describes you, stop what you are doing and go get a router, now. Then learn how to configure it and lock it down.
***
Can you elaborate alittle? I didn’t change any standard settings on my DSL router (it already has a dynamic IP) other than deny pinging from the outside.
Gene says:
> and had infected the OS to instantly spread itself through all the Linux boxes it could find as soon as it was booted.
It would be interesting to know of a mechanism whereby anything could be spread through linux boxes. You really need work hard to make that possible, as an owner, and certainly that would not be possible for an automated attack to achieve that, without co-operation from within.
The first true worm was Unix based (Linux is merely Unix on the Intel Platform). The writers of the malware count on ignorance to get their wares to propigate.
Phil, this is not the answer to my question about the mechanism. The one you are presumably referring to has been dead for a long time (30+ years, I believe). I read the other Gene as claiming that he had witnessed a recent worm in a linux system and wondered what that could be if true.
My home machine is brazenly insecure, by corporate security standards. It listens to smtp, imap+tls, http and ssh. The web port is served by a bunch of node programs that I wrote proxied by nginx. I know a highly motivated and competent hacker can break in, given enough time, but I don’t care. I am not a corporation and am not liable for any damage that may result from a break-in. And I know it is not likely happen during my lifetime.
But I would be much more concerned with the news that a machine like mine can be invaded by a self-replicating program. That’s why I am asking. I don’t believe it. From what I know about my machine, no amount of ignorance on my part would help an intruder. I would have to actively set things up for him and send an invitation. Setting things up that way is hard, as anybody who tried to write a cluster job dispatcher would tell you. That a worm-like behaviour could be observed in a naïve linux system is simply unbelievable.
@Gene, I realize that my answer did not address the issue raised by the other poster. I was merely pointing out that it is possible, not that I was aware of any current exploits.
Note that Spybot and Adaware (the product, not “adware”) are not anti-virus programs per se, though their makers probably offer AV products now. At one time Microsoft recommended running Spybot, Adaware, and an AV program. In the past Microsoft’s offerings have been incomplete and not fully available in all countries, even allied ones like Canada.
Beware of scammers using URLs similar to reputable products such as http://www.safer-networking.org which IIRC is one of Spybot’s web sites.
Suites may have anti-virus software plus email scanning for spam and malicious links (as in “phishing” attempts)f, firewall (AFAIK Windows’ firewall is only one direction, you want to know about outbound communications). Gets difficult to figure out what all is in a suite. Just noticed that ESET 4 claims to include anti-spyware function.
I like the concept of “heuristics”, which looks for suspicious patterns instead of just known threat patterns. I suppose that increases risk of false positives. Usually can be turned off.
Don’t forget your smartphone, now connected to the Internet. One product is http://www.eset.com/us/home/products/mobile-security/.
BTW, I fired Norton because they could not make their website work correctly for renewal of license.
And in the theft recovery field there is:
– http://www.absolute.com, makers of the Computrace/LoJack for Laptops tracing sofware (worthwhile, not guarantees)
– various software for Apple devices, that take a photo on remote command, or automatically if someone makes five failed attempts to unlock your iPhone.
In one case the photo showed unique tattoos on the “new user’s” body, besides the individual’s face. Police thought that was a great help, especially as the owner of the laptop manged to get much media publicity..
Yet another vouch for MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials).
If you are going to spend money on anything, get kaspersky.
If you are on Apple’s OS, don’t waste your time with anything.
If you are on linux, you probably know what you’re doing and don’t need this advice.
Source: my brother and his masters in computer security (works for HP currently).
Once a web page opens [banking etc] put this in your browser address bar to avoid “spoof” sites.
javascript:alert(“The real URL of this site is: ” + location.protocol + “//” + location.hostname + “/”)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b331/kevster1346/javascripalert_zpsa58468ed.jpg
Works for Opera, IE and earlier versions of Firefox,
That is nonsense, all major AV programs offer roughly the same protection as malware information is widely shared in the AV community. Those so called tests are using incredibly rare zero-day attacks. You can fail any AV program by testing it against the right zero-day malware. Those same tests show Microsoft Security Essentials passing on known malware (which is all anyone is likely to see). You always have to balance protection vs. practicality. It is rather easy to lock your PC down to the point where it is so protected that it is useless to use every day but what is the point. There is no way to guarantee 100% protection but Microsoft Security Essentials offers excellent AV protection for free. Security Essentials also offers good performance, automatic updates, smooth integration in Windows and is easy to use. People who bad mouth Microsoft don’t seem to understand that Microsoft gains nothing but a bad reputation if their OS gets compromised, why do you think they are offering MSE for free to home users?
You can find tests showing MSE offers excellent protection,
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=70
I have used or tested just about every major AV program at one time or another, including the well known free ones (Avast, AVG ect..) and none has ever been as trouble free as Microsoft Security Essentials.
I agree with Poptech. There was a time when the MS solution might not be such a good idea, but MS Security essentials is unobstrusive and fast, and hasn’t let me down in my office machines in testing.
AVAST is like popup balloon animals…always intruding on my desktop.
I don’t, they waste people’s time having them post unnecessarily logs and doing unnecessary steps to remove malware that just requires running the right scanner (usually Malwarebytes antimalware and a rootkit remover). They have a worthless training school where any non IT person can get “certified” to “help”. I wouldn’t ask a kindergarten teacher or a plumber to help with a computer problem but Geekstogo “certifies” them, lmao.
Malwarebytes is an excellent anti-malware scanner but the free version does not work in real time. I keep it installed to scan any really suspicious files that I download in addition to scanning them with MSE. I also use it to clean infected PCs in combination with Kasperky’s Anti-rootkit utility (TDSSKiller), http://support.kaspersky.com/5350.
If anyone has already paid for an AV program there is no reason to stop using it but I really do not see why any home user a Windows OS still pays for an AV program when MSE is free.
I love Microsoft’s free Security Essentials. With it, all the PC’s I’ve installed it on work faster than with Norton’s garbage and I uninstalled my Trend software even though I had time left on it. I also use Spybot to get rid of spyware… it is also free too.
I agree with most of this except the ones by far that I see that are infected have AV programs that have expired. So yes they had Norton or McAfee installed but it has not been updated for six months. This may be another reason to go with a free AV like MSE as most people are lazy.
Without question I recommend every Windows user has an AV installed but people still want the “best” or “perfect” protection – it doesn’t exist. For some odd reason people falsely believe that they are getting better protection because they paid for it, I have no idea why.
This is my biggest problem with pay AV programs as they are usually “suites” with a more cumbersome and intrusive firewall and other nonsense. MSE integrates seamlessly with the Windows firewall.
This is a ten year old Internet Myth pre-Windows XP SP2 which effectively neutered ActiveX based attacks. Each version of IE since has added more and more security features. This being said there is no reason you should be using anything but the latest version of IE for your OS (IE8 – Windows XP, IE9 – Windows Vista, 7 and IE10 – Windows 8). If you have the latest version of IE for your OS and all the latest Windows security updates it is highly unlikely IE is the source of the malware attack. With that being said Microsoft not supporting previous OSes with their very latest browser version is enough of a reason to consider another browser but security concerns should not be. I use Google Chrome for the speed and simplicity.
[Insert browser name] perfect security is a myth and you need to make sure yours is updated. Firefox for instance has had 963 vulnerabilities found since it has been released, http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search-results?query=firefox
This is pure conspiratorial nonsense. With each new version of Windows and service pack they keep ramping up security. For instance, Windows XP came with a built-in firewall for free, Microsoft released a free anti-malware program (later renamed Windows Defender) in 2004 and included it with Windows Vista and 7, Microsoft released Security Essentials in 2009 and included it in Windows 8. This is among the many other security improvements they implemented,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457059.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc507844.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd560691.aspx
Desktop OS Marketshare will make Microsoft Windows the primary target of attacks so long as they hold it.
You also seem to be confused as no Windows home user has to pay for security as MSE is free for XP, Vista and 7 users and 8 comes with it built in.
My last post went into the filter
30%? Linux cannot even crack 2% after 20 years!
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10
The reason they cannot gain any market share is there has never been a dominant easy to use Distro with a corporation behind it, Red Hat was their best hope but it is now pay to play with Fedora effectively unsupported. Instead the community keeps fracturing itself into insignificance with new Distros forked from other Distros. I am incredibly skeptical and have had bad experiences relying on software let alone an OS supported by a “team” of users who can get burned out rather easily. The only Distros I would even consider are Fedora or Ubuntu. The Linux community cannot even standardize on a GUI. Yes, I have heard all the arguments why this is so great. So great that next to no one uses it. I really want to like Linux but the community just does not understand what the obvious problems are. Instead it takes other companies to make Linux work (Android).
I recommend not using Hosts files. Malware can easily modify the Hosts File at will, even if it is set to Read-only. It is impossible to “lock-down” a Hosts File unless you are running as a limited user which makes using it in this case irrelevant anyway. Various malware uses the Hosts File to redirect your Web Browser to other sites. They can also redirect Windows to use a Hosts File that has nothing to do with the one you keep updating. The Hosts file is an archaic part of networking setups that was originally meant to be used on a LAN and was the legacy way to look up Domain Names on the ARPANET. It tells a PC the fixed numeric address of the internal server(s) so the PC doesn’t have to go looking for them through all possible addresses. It can save time when “discovering” a LAN. I don’t consider 1970’s ARPANET technology useful against modern malware. When cleaning malware from a PC, it is much easier to check a clean Hosts File then one filled with thousands of lines of addresses.
Large Hosts Files cause Internet related slowdowns due to DNS Client Server Caching. This negatively effects your browsing speed. AntiSpyware Hosts File authors irresponsibly recommend disabling the DNS Client Service to solve this problem. This is not a solution. The overall performance of the client computer decreases and the network traffic for DNS queries increases if the DNS resolver cache is deactivated. This effectively reduces Internet Performance for sites you have previously visited and puts an unnecessary load on your ISP’s DNS server.
No-script can render websites completely unusable, there are better plugins for browsers but I am not going to recommend them here.
@Poptech: I know the problems with LINUX, I cut my teeth on SUNOS and Solaris in my professional life (I used the old tape drive basic on a home built machine on my very first taste of computing) and always hoped they could expand out of the workstation market and into the consumer side. My post was a round about way of saying to people that the only reason their Macs (and other Unix distros – MacOS is just a GUI over a modified Unix core after all) aren’t plagued like the Microsoft boxes is it isn’t worth the hacker’s time to develop a complex and quiet worm or bot for at most 5% combined market share. Much more lucrative to hit the 90+% of the market on Windows. LINUX has plenty of holes to exploit, and most novice users don’t know how to lock down the most exploited features. Luckily the new LINUX releases like Ubuntu come in locked down mode by default now and you have to turn on services and ports to make things work. The first LINUX that I ever saw was wide open out of the box and scared the dickens out of me when I probed it in the shop. Any Tom, Dick or Harry could have owned that box from any terminal in the world, and most universities around the world were using something like it as their gateway server! The 80’s and early 90’s were the honey years for hackers, luckily they hadn’t thought of botting all those servers into one big attack machine…that had to wait for the early 2000s.