The internet is fucked.

[Job]

I mean really it is, they reckon now 60,000 new variants of malware a day.
With the very best AV only detecting 80% of what was out YESTERDAY!
My freakin computer is diseased with this shit, I clean it and clean it and clean it
and still 5 new fucking exe's appear in the msconfig startup.
I'm gonna have to get a Linux box for surfing the naughty bits.
We need the death penalty for writing this stuff.

 

[Raven]

Odd. I haven't had a virus in years. But then I don't click on every link promising FREE BEWBS!

Unless Edmond posts it ofc.

 

[Job]

You have hundreds on your PC, trust me, you don't need to click
on anything, Microshite made their OS so ultrafuckinglyeasy to impregnate that the bad guys think their birthdays and christmas have come at once.
If you are connected to the internet, your PC is infested, simple as that.

 

[nath]

If you are connected to the internet, your PC is infested, simple as that.

So very, very wrong.

 

[old.Tohtori]

How could you tell if my comp is infested? I don't mean that as "you don't know sh*t", but as a question of interest. If i provide info etc, can you tell?

Or can you tell how to tell?

 

[ford prefect]

Use a Mac for all your surfing needs, they are pretty and disease free /shrug

 

[nath]

Use a Mac for all your surfing needs, they are pretty and disease free /shrug

And massively overpriced .

 

[ford prefect]

And massively overpriced .

Yeah yeah, but pretty.

 

[nath]

Yeah yeah, but pretty.

Pff, so shallow .

 

[ford prefect]

Eight to nine hours of battery life with wireless on, probably the finest laptop keyboard ever, a superb display, a pretty much bullet proof OS and a sexy milled aluminum case (milled in parts so thinly the LED's actually shine through the aluminum - I may be shallow and it may be over priced (well its not really - just well made), but it is a damn fine machine

 

[nath]

They are nice, the OS is gash but they're very nicely made machines.

A mate once put together an incredibly powerful mac tower on their store for just shy of £4k (he works 3d animation so needed a beast). He gave me the specs and I totalled up the *exact* same spec from regular retailers (so what would potentially be a Windows machine) for roughly £2100.

The laptops are lovely things and may be appropriately priced, but Apple are massively overpriced on so many things.

 

[Raven]

Not to mention being full to the brim with aids.

 

[Ctuchik]

I mean really it is, they reckon now 60,000 new variants of malware a day.
With the very best AV only detecting 80% of what was out YESTERDAY!

so that would mean that every day (or at the very least a few times a month) my virus scanner would go haywire with virus warnings, it's not.

i cant recall having a virus warning since blaster first came out.

think i can say with some degree of confidence that my PC is virus free.

ofc, i don't fuck around with my AV programs or firewalls making exception rules and shit.

 

[Ctuchik]

Use a Mac for all your surfing needs, they are pretty and disease free /shrug

for now at least, tho elk cloner was a problem back in the day.

so just wait until MAC's get more popular (probably won't be but hey)

 

[Punishment]

I mean really it is, they reckon now 60,000 new variants of malware a day.
With the very best AV only detecting 80% of what was out YESTERDAY!
My freakin computer is diseased with this shit, I clean it and clean it and clean it
and still 5 new fucking exe's appear in the msconfig startup.
I'm gonna have to get a Linux box for surfing the naughty bits.
We need the death penalty for writing this stuff.

Ok some fairly basic noob stuff , 1st use an old machine for the naughty stuff

On main machine install paid antivirus of choice or if broke use avast free version use spybot s+d , browse only with firefox and install the 4-5 add-ons like wot/adaware and noscript etc , profit

 

[nath]

On main machine install paid antivirus of choice or if broke use avast free version use spybot s+d , browse only with firefox and install the 4-5 add-ons like wot/adaware and noscript etc , profit

Paid AV? Why on earth?

Microsoft Security Essentials + common sense is all you'll ever need to keep a clean PC.

Oh, and if you've downloaded a file you're particularly worried about - www.virustotal.com is a nice way of checking across a whole bunch of AV databases.

 

[Punishment]

I meant to run whatever paid antivirus you prefer and have free AV as a 2nd opinion , personally i pay for my Avast as its such a good program i think its worth spending afew euros to pat them on the back and i forgot dont use default firewall download and use free Comodo firewall

 

[nath]

Piffpaff, the standard firewall + a NAT router is fine.

 

[Ch3tan]

No offence Job, but you seem like you don't have a clue when surfing.

I've had one virus in 10 years, one. That was my sister using MSN.

Basic firewall + virus scanner + common sense.

 

[Ch3tan]

also, nath is right. You get no benefit for a paid virus scanner over the better free one's. Utter waste of money.

 

[Punishment]

also, nath is right. You get no benefit for a paid virus scanner over the better free one's. Utter waste of money.

Yea but if nobody paid for antivirus ever they would all be shit

I pay coz i can as i approve of the product , also nomal firewall = accident waiting to happen , and if you use IE as your browser ontop of basic firewall your walking down a dark alley in a dress 2 sizes too small and its only gonna end 1 way

 

[nath]

I pay coz i can as i approve of the product , also nomal firewall = accident waiting to happen , and if you use IE as your browser ontop of basic firewall your walking down a dark alley in a dress 2 sizes too small and its only gonna end 1 way

A noble position, but I wouldn't recommend others pay for AV unless they share it. For security purposes, the free stuff is fine. Besides, businesses will always be paying for their licenses and so there's little chance that AV companies will suddenly stop getting money.

Plus, regular firewall plus *latest* IE, plus common sense = fine. Oh, and NAT router of course, no NAT = bad.

 

[Bahumat]

They are nice, the OS is gash but they're very nicely made machines.

A mate once put together an incredibly powerful mac tower on their store for just shy of £4k (he works 3d animation so needed a beast). He gave me the specs and I totalled up the *exact* same spec from regular retailers (so what would potentially be a Windows machine) for roughly £2100.

The laptops are lovely things and may be appropriately priced, but Apple are massively overpriced on so many things.

I am a Windows man and I don't like the Apple OS. However I've heard (quite a few times) that you should not compare the windows and mac machines in a 'stat for stat' argument as mac's gain more from the hardware as there is less windows rubbish hogging all the power/speed, so a 2GHz cpu in a windows machine would perform worse than in a mac OS.

Don't know this for certain, but as i say, i've heard it a few times.

 

[nath]

I am a Windows man and I don't like the Apple OS. However I've heard (quite a few times) that you should not compare the windows and mac machines in a 'stat for stat' argument as mac's gain more from the hardware as there is less windows rubbish hogging all the power/speed, so a 2GHz cpu in a windows machine would perform worse than in a mac OS.

Don't know this for certain, but as i say, i've heard it a few times.

Perhaps, but either way - ignoring the OS, the physical hardware was the same. Same intel processor, same high spec RAM etc. etc. So either way, one would hope the prices would end up being close, but it was almost double for the Apple.

 

[Tuthmes]

In general:

Windows is made for every computer. Therefor it has to take into account every piece of hardware you can buy at your local pc store.

Apple/Mac will only support their rigs (they build), nothing else.

Linux is made for every computer, but for every computer there's a Linux version aswell. If you can't find a driver for your hardware, you are fked. There are some developments in the DirectX department though, so it might become mainstream soon. That said, rumour has it Duke Nukem Forever will be comming out next year aswell.


It's not so hard to see why Apple can have an advantage.


Anyways, thus far no OS is save (on the internet) atm. And for all you Apple user out there. Lately there has bin a lot of new leaks and holes discovered in the OSX and Iphone/Ipad systems. As soon as they fix it, it gets jailbroken again (in case of the Iphone/Ipad OS).

Apple whas kewl back in the day with their "own" hardware. These days they focus on lazy people who can't or won't put any effort into running a computer the way they want it. They let Apple decide for them and think it's the best thing in the world and worth paying for. Fair enough.

 

[Ch3tan]

also nomal firewall = accident waiting to happen , and if you use IE as your browser ontop of basic firewall your walking down a dark alley in a dress 2 sizes too small and its only gonna end 1 way

LOL, what utter tosh.

I use windows firewall, have done since zonealarm became bloated and other free alternatives were too intrusive. Most of us have routers with NAT firewalls, they give you a great first line of defence, any intrusions can therrefor be blamed on a lack of common sense.

 

[Job]

I think you're confusing 'no virus warnings' with actually being clean, the 60,000
a day is true, it's in the news now, it's got so bad the antivirus companies are realising they need a totally new approach.
I don't get any virus warnings, I just started using some proper nerdy malware search processes and found my machine was freakin riddled.

 

[Dukat]

I think you're confusing 'no virus warnings' with actually being clean, the 60,000
a day is true, it's in the news now, it's got so bad the antivirus companies are realising they need a totally new approach.
I don't get any virus warnings, I just started using some proper nerdy malware search processes and found my machine was freakin riddled.

You're always going to have something get through - its the way its always been.

True safety has always lied in the fact that you're one among many, many other targets - theres never really been a good way to reliably protect against determined attacks for the regular user.

As the others have said - if you use common sense in your browsing and a half decent firewall then there is no reason for you to be 'riddled'.

The majority of 'hits' you'll be getting will be tracking cookies which in and of themselves aren't really worth worrying about too much.

Think about it this way - malware, spyware, adware, viruses and any other malicious code needs an entry point. Granted you've probably got an 'always on' internet connection, but if its just sat there, idling, what exactly is going to get this code onto your pc?

I know, I know - its not truly "safe" just because you're inactive, but its not far off when you consider what someone has to go through to initiate something against you.

So assuming you're as safe as you're going to get like that, you need some kind of action on your part to trigger it. This is what people mean by common sense browsing - going on any site you're not sure about is a risk, and its easy to guage that risk by looking at content etc.

Maybe not 100% accurate in hard technical terms ^^ but the general principle holds. Theres no reason to be overly worried about the internet dying from nasty code.

 

[ford prefect]

Yea but if nobody paid for antivirus ever they would all be shit

I pay coz i can as i approve of the product , also nomal firewall = accident waiting to happen , and if you use IE as your browser ontop of basic firewall your walking down a dark alley in a dress 2 sizes too small and its only gonna end 1 way

The thing about AV's with subscriptions is that the companies that make them feel guilty and in order to justify a monthly or yearly sub they add ridiculous and unnecessary features and I suspect there is a contest among them to see just how much hard drive space and RAM they can consume.

 

[TdC]