What will be a better one firewall I can download and use for free, that will come with my windows xp and won't slow it down?
[User since edited his first post with a link to a drug site. B&. -- MOD]
Yourself, as each one slows down your PC to a crawl. Judge the file size to the appropriate estimate, and if it's close, it's probably safe. If not, probably a virus. But if your downloading from IE, EVERYTHING is a virus then.
Personally I never needed a firewall. I'm a very careful user, but if by any chance something bad happens (usually once every couple of years, or even less) I just format the hard drive. Also, when I need to do something I know is not safe, I do it inside a virtual machine or sandbox.
Anyway, formatting the hard drive every couple of years is not a bad thing, it helps to keep the system fast and stable. Windows can get pretty sluggish after a few years of continuous use.
I'd still like to hear any comments from pro-firewall users... Since I don't know much about the subject, I'd like to understand what the advantages of using one are.
I've never noticed any difference between the Windows Firewall running and the Windows Firewall not running.
3rd party firewalls all suck, including the ones that are built in to commercially sold antivirus programs. Windows firewall is enough. If you have a good router that may even be enough.
tokumaru wrote:
Personally I never needed a firewall. I'm a very careful user, but if by any chance something bad happens (usually once every couple of years, or even less) I just format the hard drive. Also, when I need to do something I know is not safe, I do it inside a virtual machine or sandbox.
This. Spending so much time online quickly develops a hunch for that kind of thing. If I've a single suspicious file I upload it to
Virustotal.
I do, though, have Linux acting as a firewall (iptables/shorewall) blocking the incoming ports that I don't need to be open. Also takes care of sharing the internet and stuff like that.
I did also use a Windows firewall at some point called Kerio Personal Firewall or something like that, but it has gone to shit since.
65024U wrote:
Yourself
Not everybody administers a computer used only by himself. Some people administer a computer used by family members, co-workers, or even (in the case of an Internet cafe) the public.
tokumaru wrote:
if by any chance something bad happens (usually once every couple of years, or even less) I just format the hard drive.
Which is a pain if the computer maker hasn't included a recovery disc, as most of the major computer makers have started not to do over the past few years according to
a recent story posted to Slashdot. A lot of these include the recovery data on a partition of the hard drive and allow the end user to burn it to a DVD exactly once. If that backup ends up unreadable, or if your laptop had no optical drive in the first place, tough stool.
And sometimes using the firewall built into a consumer NAT router isn't enough. Once you start having problems with the Internet connection, the ISP's phone representative will tell you to bypass your router by unplugging it and connecting the Ethernet cable directly from the modem to the PC. At this point, if your modem happens to sync and your PC is running Windows, one of the various
random-port-scanning worms might infect you in minutes.
Fortunately I'm not in any of the situations tepples mentioned.
In that case I can only suggest the person saves money and buys his own computer and OS so that he doesn't have to deal with those problems.
I did that back when I got my first job... As soon as I could I got my own PC, and ever since that I haven't worried about other people ruining my computer(s).
If that isn't an option, set up a sandbox and a virtual machine and instruct the people you share the computer with on how/when to use them.
I guess its "nerd sheek" to avoid them but commercial firewalls/virus scans are useful, I use Norton......
peppers wrote:
Norton......
In my experience, everything that carries the name "Norton" is bloated and slow... I'm never going back to that crap. I do use a lightweight free AV, but that's mostly to allow me to identify threats, I don't expect it to actually block anything.
the user interface could use some optimization but the "Auto-protect" and firewall use a reasonable amount to resources. And even though the "PC tune up" features are ether already built into windows or can be accomplished for free, I find them usefull. Since my ISP is charging me for Norton anyway I might as well use it.
The best "firewall" is a program called DeepFreeze that logs all changes made to the hard drive and discards them on reboot.
Every day my computer is exactly the way it was a year ago when I set it up. I have a folder with program installers if I need to put something on temporarily. If I want to install something permanently I can "thaw" it, do what I need, and freeze it again. I don't know if I ever get infected with viruses and I don't care, because every restart means I'm clean again.
UncleSporky wrote:
The best "firewall" is a program called DeepFreeze that logs all changes made to the hard drive and discards them on reboot.
That's basically the same thing I do with virtual machines, but a little more extreme. I'd actually like to try DeepFreeze, but The problem is that it appears to be quite pricey, while VirtualBox is free.
For a while now I've been cutting back on the amount of pirated software I use, favoring free applications whenever possible (for example, I replaced Nero with ImgBurn, Photoshop with GIMP, CorelDraw with Inkscape, VMWare with VirtualBox, MSOffice with OpenOffice, WinRAR/WinZIP with 7-Zip, and some of them are actually better than what I used before, and not nearly as bloated). So even if DeepFreeze can be pirated easily, I'm not sure I'd be willing to.
tokumaru wrote:
UncleSporky wrote:
The best "firewall" is a program called DeepFreeze that logs all changes made to the hard drive and discards them on reboot.
That's basically the same thing I do with virtual machines, but a little more extreme. I'd actually like to try DeepFreeze, but The problem is that it appears to be quite pricey, while VirtualBox is free.
A free alternative for Windows XP computers is
Microsoft's SteadyState. I don't think they've made a version for 7 yet.
tokumaru wrote:
peppers wrote:
Norton......
In my experience, everything that carries the name "Norton" is bloated and slow... I'm never going back to that crap. I do use a lightweight free AV, but that's mostly to allow me to identify threats, I don't expect it to actually block anything.
I really agree, Tokumaru. Norton programs might as well be a bunch of Viruses and Malware, I tried it and all I got is crap, Might as well try to sue thier asses! But until time comes, too powerful to even do that.
In other words, I've found Avast! Antivirus to be quite safe and useful at home. And it works on Windows 7 64-bit!
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In other words, I've found Avast! Antivirus to be quite safe and useful at home. And it works on Windows 7 64-bit!
Avast will make your PC feel like 10 year older PC. It even made my PC crash when it ran while an emulator was already running. In other words, wathever you do avoid avast at all cost - you'd rather want a virused PC than a PC with avast installed.
I feel like security became much of a lobby - companies use hackers and virus to sell their programs. Just like people use illness to sell medicine - when in fact you recover the same no matter whether or not you take any medicine. The comparison between computer viruses and real life viruses couldn't be any closer.
Now I don't deny that viruses and hackers DO exist and CAN be dangerous. I just point out that many people probably exaggerate the danger in order of magnitude to create a lobby.
I think most people learn the hard way they require at least some level of protection. I think most people who have used there computer to "surf the web" a lot without any protection have been hit with a devastating browser exploit that really screws up your life.
In my experience Mcafee really slowed down my machine and did not even offer very good protection but Norton dose not have a very large performance impact even on my old 1.5ghz and actually protects my computers.
peppers wrote:
I think most people who have used there computer to "surf the web" a lot without any protection have been hit with a devastating browser exploit that really screws up your life.
There's something really simple that can be done about surfing: always run your browser in a sandbox. Although
Sandboxie isn't free, it can be used indefinitely, it will at most show you a nag screen every once in a while. With that you can visit as many porn/RoMz/WaReZ sites as you want and never give a shit about any threats.
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Norton dose not have a very large performance impact even on my old 1.5ghz
Or maybe you just don't see the difference because you never used the same computer without such bloatware.
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and actually protects my computers.
IMO, anti-virus programs are like just the Easter bunny or Santa Claus. They give a fake sense of security, because when shit gets real ugly they can never restore the previous stability of your system. They might even get rid of the viruses, but your system always gets crippled in some way. When damage is done, it's done.
And the eternal race between new threats and definition updates is something really annoying to be caught in. I'd much rather not care about being infect at all and just wipe everything out in one go, like is possible with sandboxes, virtual machines and reboot-to-restore.
When a browser exploit is used to attack your computer it dose more than effect the browser, simply not useing IE helps with that but its not fool proof.
Nothing is perfect but decent virus scans can protect your computer from many of the threats that are out there with minimal effort on your part.
personally I like having persistence in the changes I make intentionally and would not want everything reset every time I restart or have to remember to tell the computer to keep the changes I wanted to make.
I would much rather use a virus scan and keep a backup of my OS in a state that is more of less how I want it in case its necessary.
peppers wrote:
When a browser exploit is used to attack your computer it dose more than effect the browser
Unless you're running IE in what amounts to an emulator that isolates the browser from the rest of Windows. Such containers can be as light as Sandboxie or as heavy as VirtualBox.
No virus scanner yet has found the 84 viruses in my copy of Dr. Mario.
peppers wrote:
When a browser exploit is used to attack your computer it dose more than effect the browser, simply not useing IE helps with that but its not fool proof.
Do you know what Sandboxie does? Any program running inside it (that includes programs started from programs running inside it) can't affect the hard disk at all. All disk writes are redirected to images that can be discarded later, so it really is 100% safe to do anything while browsing the web if your browser is running in a sandbox.
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personally I like having persistence in the changes I make intentionally and would not want everything reset every time I restart or have to remember to tell the computer to keep the changes I wanted to make.
Except for files I download and documents I work on, I rarely want to keep anything from session to session, and for these cases you can always mark certain folders as permanent. I rarely install new programs, but even when I do I would like the first time to not be for real, so I can evaluate the program and be able to get rid of it without leaving any traces in case it wasn't what I was expecting.
Honestly I wouldn't even care if things like browsing history were wiped every time I rebooted my computer. I could very well keep all my relevant links elsewhere and not have to rely on the browser trying to guess where I want to go.
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I would much rather use a virus scan and keep a backup of my OS in a state that is more of less how I want it in case its necessary.
Then it's a good thing that both of us are happy with the different solutions we use.
Didn't people realize yet that this guy is a spammer that just added a spam link in the first mail and didn't post anything else to the thread at all? It was pretty obvious from the start. Why post about firewall things in a nesdev forum.
Tepples, lock this tread and clean the first message please.
This is only one more proof that internet security became a lobby in itself and that hackers benefit from it.
It's fun how spammers can bring up interesting topics.
The spammer did give us something to talk about... but yeah, I think this is done now.
Do you really think the topic should be locked though? Maybe someone will want to use it in the future? Either way I'm fine.
I guess I overreacted just because I knew from the start that the post was fishy. If people still feel like posting in this thread I guess I can't say anything about it.
So as a rule of thumb, I guess if someone start a thread that is not NESdev related, we should check his posts # and if inferior to 10 or so, then not answer to him and for moderators lock the thread / ban him. Right ?
idk, a decent amount of topics started by these bots have entertained me.
Ban "user" is a good idea after checking there ip and being reasonably sure they are not a real person, but this is already done. locking the topic could be done in a case by case basis.
I think the policy of common sense the moderators here already follow covers these situation.
Yeah, it's only the ones like these that survive immediate deletion. The ones that almost seem plausible, but not really (pretty much no one will ask a random question in 'General Stuff' with no introduction as a first post).
What I hate to do is delete the first post in a thread. If it's that bad I prefer to delete the whole thread, which also means in a few cases, some amusing joke replies to spammers have been nuked with it. That's really the main approach I've used over the years to make the place seem spam-free. And trying to get to it before there are replies. But this one was sneakier than most.