Posted: 2/24/2008 3:12:43 PM EDT
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Hardwear firewall, softwear firewall, antivirus softwear, spywear What do you guys recommend? |
Get a router like a linksys router. That will help limit your exposure to inbound unsolicited traffic. Install zone alarm on your system be selective when it asks about programs trying to connect outbound to the net. Then get AVG for virus protection. No promises that you can ever be fully protected.  -Foxxz |
The important one to unplug is the one with the RJ45 plug, abstinence... |
That will actually be very secure. He won't know how to install it , much less use it, then he'll get mad at it and walk away, leaving it at the screen for partitioning the drive.  I hide behind a hardware firewall, use firefox, run as a XP restricted user account... Not invulnurable, but pretty good I think. |
Believe it or not, installing some distributions have become as "painless" or less than the average Windows installation. These are not the best performing distros, but it certainly has become more user friendly. One can even burn a live CD in order to try certain distros out before installing. ETA |
Great advice to someone who obviously isn't that into computers....  Linux isn't the answer to everything. -d |
i disagree 100% if all the guy is doing is surfing the web and checking email, something like Ubuntu would be a very viable option. it is extremely user friendly, easy to install, and doesn't require any special administration. |
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This is what I use... and I've been running the same XP installation for over 5 years with no issues. #1 - Use a hardware router. I use a Linksys WRT54G with the Tomato firmware. You don't need to super firmware at all if you don't want it. This is basically your firewall. If you have this, you don't need ZoneAlarm. #2 - Use antivirus. I don't like Norton or McAfee, they seem to take up too much RAM. I use AVGFree, because it's small and free. It also seems to work well. #3 - Use Anti-spyware. I use AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Run them periodically. The latest Spybot has a running process that will check for registry changes and stuff too. #4 - Use good passwords. I store my passwords in KeePass so I don;t forget them. #5 - Backup, backup, backup. I use a USB hard disk connected to a LinkSys "slug" NAS bridge. You don't need that, a regular drive will do fine. #6 - Be smart online. Viewing lots of porn sites - sites with a lot of popups - usually have viruses or spyware on them. I'd - you know - avoid those. Some porn sites are ok hy.gif #7 - When at all possible, do not use your administrator account. In XP this can be annoying, and only mildly useful - even non-admins can do some things you wouldn't want for them to do. In Vista it gets REALLY annoying, but actually prevents many more things from happening that you don't want to happen. #8 - When you get your computer to where you're happy with it - image it. It's much easier to make the wipe decision when you have a backup of your data and an image of the programs. It can save you hours. |
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Alot of good points, the best being the use of an account with lesser user priviledges. This is normally the default way to do things in linux, and can be done with Windows too. However, it's all too common for people (including myself) to be lazy and run Windows with full administrative rights. It's nice and convenient, even for the bad guys. Second is "watch what you're clicking on." A router does a good job of playing bouncer at the door, but doesn't prevent you from letting something in, and allowing it to send out stuff. |