Virus

Please re-read. You'll see you're mistaken on both accusations.

Sorry, I left unsaid something that I feel important to say. I also use Comodo's firewall as it's done well in the most demanding tests. And I earlier said that one can safely surf the Internet with Sandboxie, I meant to say relatively safely. Nothing is 100 % safe, unless one runs one of those on-cd only Linux OSes or something similar.

Regards,
Tobio

aliengrove,
Regardless of your first two statements being 100% false, out of respect and in an attempt to give you some credit I did go back and re-read anyway. Sounds like your days in computing go back as far as mine with similar backgrounds. (I made no prior assumptions to your abilities, In fact I believe there were no unqualified assumptions any any statements.)

Although I do, to some extent, agree that scanning backups and reinstalling them is risky, there are documents you simply cannot live without and have to make a risk analysis on what has a low risk tolerance to be considered "safe". Images & documents are good examples, as long as you have your latest system patches installed.

** Executables should ALWAYS be reinstalled cleanly from a trusted source. (CD, original develoeper website), NEVER from backup.


Sadly, you're observations on how malware works is simply false, and I stand by my statement.
Your comment was uninformed and a foolhardy thing to say.


I hold anyone who suggests that a re-install is not necessary to prove there is no malware left on the machine. (A simple task on a 128K DOS machine. Not so simple on an OS that spans hundreds of megabytes, with gigabytes of RAM paged out to disk.)


There is a company (ESET NOD32) that is currently stating that they never missed a piece of malware in the wild for the past ten years. LIES LIES LIES!
Our "malware" (remember, it was used for 'good', so malware is not necessarily an accurate name ) was tested nightly against the top virus/anti-malware scanners (paid and free), including NOD32 to ensure it was not detectable. It passes to this day. They were not, and are not the only ones with such methods for testing the integrity of their products.


1. Never believe marketing pitches.
2. Never believe anyone who says your machine is 100% guaranteed to be clean or safe.
3. To make your computer 100% safe; format your hard drive, disconnect the computer from the wall, smash it into a million pieces, and burry it in the back yard six feet deep in an acrylic block.

Amoringello,

I tend to have quite a lot of software on my computer, and it can be very difficult to re-install, and always extremely time-consuming.

Provided I have a back-up, it makes more sense NOT to start again from scratch. This way I save a huge amount of time with a small risk (and it is small) that the infection will re-emerge.

There is no certainty in this world, and every day we take risks on the basis of the odds as we perceive them.

G

True! Good point.
Some people find wearing a helmet or wearing seatbelts to be difficult for their way of life.
Many/most of those people live every day with no problem. but...

Good prevention helps to bring very low risk.
Although once infected (assuming the warnings were for true worms, viruses, and malware), those risks increase many, many fold... and very, very quickly.

(edit)Just a note, I'm not talking about re-emergence of an infection. I'm talking about the continued infection by malicious software that had not been detected and therefore not removed in the first place.

Anyway, all I can do it present a real world state of what is out there.
Weigh the risks, and make an informed decision.

Amonringello, interesting posts. You may well have worked for some super secret agency which produced malware for the NSA, but you are clearly guilty of spreading FUD

The vast majority of people here have no need, and indeed no time, to take the precautions you advise.

Interesting all the negative feedback on AVG, I've never had a problem myself but maybe it's time for a change: it seems a few users on here have had serious problems with it. I've never liked Norton, it seems to slow computers down. I had a free year of it with a new computer once, and it seemed very processor-hungry. My wife uses Avast which so far seems pretty good. Dos anyone have any feedback on it?

Or maybe I should take my fellow aliens advice and just erase everything and start again behind an impenetrable layer of firewalls?

How many times - before 2009 Norton was a system hog but Norton took it on board and 2009/2010 are much less greedy and don't seem to slow a system at all as far as I can see. Certainly I couldn't tell the difference between Norton and AVG except Norton seems to work (famous last words of course).

Ok Mike point taken! Perhaps I am a bit behind the times, I was put off Norton years ago and never considered it again. I'll have a look at it, as AVG are perhaps not so keen on keeping their free version up to date as a company that has a vested financial interest. AVG's strategy seems to be to keep trying to convince you that you need their fully paid up version, so I have thought about switching AV protection for a while.

I felt the same as you but a friend I respect suggested Norton and I tried an evaluation for 30 days and it was fine. Well AVG would like an income stream but it helps if the product works.

Yes, this is quite possible - BUT - more likely it is a much lesser number of viruses that have replicated themselves into as many folders as possible.
Disconnected from the internet for obvious reasons, you can use the "Search" function to see if you have (say) 100 examples of "virus.exe" or if the AV program has found 100 different viruses.

Re AVG:
I was an AVG fan for some years. It did let two really nasty viruses through. The first one was subsequently picked up by AVG (too late) which points up the need to update your AV program's definition files very very regularly. That one rewrote the "Hosts" table so that I could not contact any AV site on the internet for help. (OK, so I knew that trick and how to get round it). After I had spent a day cleaning as much as I could out of the machine, my son-in-law took it away to deal with - the printout of what was left ran to two pages, and almost all was down to duplicates.
The second time I changed the HD and did a clean install. Now I use Windows Security Essentials (WSE), and SuperAntiSpyware. Other people that I know trust other programs.YGMMV.

Having any AV program is not a whole lot of use on its own.
You have to update it regularly (WSE is on auto-update)and use it regularly.
Call it house-keeping - run the AV and the spyware programs once or twice a week as a minimum.
Geoff (with over 25 years computer experience, and still a lot to learn :lol

Nope, just run a live distro CD of Linux. PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, OpenSuse. Browse with Firefox, run OpenOffice. Use Webmail. Using this I can access my work based Exchange mail.

he, he, just be sure the Live CD is configured to leave no persistent data on a hard drive.

Some of the new ones want to advertise themselves as being "safe" yet comfortable for new users. To this end some will store persistent data locally to assist with that. (eh, wha? why?)
Any persistent data can of course be used against you -- persistently. Argh!!!

So at least remove all storage devices, hard drives, USB, etc... epoxy the connectors and then burry that box six feet deep encased in an acrylic block. Of course, without any method of storing data, the computer becomes a bit less useful.

I don't even want go into the potential holes caused by using services like Facebook (linking with its "like" or "recommend" buttons and the potential for "click-jacking" where all you need is a browser open to potentially give a person access to your email, vpn, bank records, etc... )


Be safe. Unplug. Lock your doors. Stay in bed.

Really to be 100% safe, first get a roll of aluminium foil from the kitchen.

Just slide your HDD out of the caddy. Run your live distro, if you don't know what you're doing it doesn't matter what you do, your data isn't safe.
As I suggested, webmail, use web based storage, clouds etc rent space.

The foil? Use it to make a hat to wear whilst in bed.

I knew I forgot something last night. Yikes! I think they found me... gotta run...