Baldy’s Paradox

Now here is a true oxymoron, however in the next few days I hope to make things a little easier on the you the average user. I want to talk about the items that you really should have installed on your computer and after installing them you have to make sure that you are deligent about updating them on a regular basis or all the tools in the world are not going to be worth a hill of beans if you don’t keep them updated, plain and simple.

Over all I want to say a few things about the items that I think anyone surfing the internet should have and while there are many options for each of the items I plan to show you the free and compentent ones, there are pay for use options but that will be gotten into at a later date. And no because they are free doesn’t mean that they are not as good as one of the high priced spread.

The list of software that you will need to download are as follows FireWall,Virus Scanner, Malware Scanner, Rootkit Scanner. However these days some of the nasties are a combination of two or more types of the above, don’t get lazy and say I have a virus scanner I don’t need the rest of that stuff. Trust me in the long run you learn to love your security tools, especially after your best friend calls to tell you that his or her computer is all mucked up due to a malicious website and you can sit back and say darn sorry to hear that.

First and foremost lets get a good firewall installed and configured shall we?

http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/home.jsp

For windows users this the one and only Firewall that I suggest. There are others but for free this is the one that you want. Unlike the one that is included in Windows this has the ability to monitor the outgoing connections as well as the incoming ones. Why you ask do you want to have the out going watched? Well rootkits and Trojans and other fun little visitors just love to call home when you are not watching and if you have one and it is sending it’s self to all your friends, make that former friends if you do send them a unwanted gift, you will not be the most popular person at the next neighborhood get together.

Okay you have that downloaded and you are ready to install it right? Right? Okay lets start by clicking on that file that you downloaded, and it will walk you through the basic install, for most users all the defaults are just fine to get started we will get into the advanced options later folks don’t get ahead of me for now. Okay you have it done yet? That’s better now lets move on to the Virus scanner shall we? Now this can really open a can of worms and no matter what software in suggest here I will get letters saying what in the world are you talking about? You didn’t mention “insert their favorite program here” that is true like I said I am going with the basics and the free enough said now stopping complaining will you?

http://www.avast.com/

Now we are getting into some of the touchy stuff that everyone will have a opinion on so as I said before this is my suggestion based on personal use and results that I have found to be above average. And once again I will say this is based on the free versions of software and yes there are pay for view options that are rated higher however we will get into those at that later date I keep mentioning.

Okay why Avast you say? For a free version it is IMHO the best on the market it has auto updates and will scan downloads from both http,ftp,and via newsgroups if you are so inclined to do so.Along with that feature is the ability to have it preform regular scheduled scans either the entire system or just specific folders that you can set up to suit your needs. Once again I have to make the point you must do the updates so when the program does it for you what is wrong with that concept. By this point you now have a firewall and a anti virus program set up,updated and running, now on to the other PITA’s that will try and work their way into your computer.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

With SpywareBlaster you have a tool that is going to sit and prevent those nasty spyware programs from even entering your computer. Now this a free program and everyone should have installed and updated, just to feel a tad safer in the long run. Remember it is a lot easier to block a bug than it is to totally remove one. As with any program this one should be updated as soon as you install it to make sure that you have the latest files and definitions.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 anti virus/spyware/rootkit

This is one that I have to mention as it provides programs to cover all of the big Three. And it is also free so while I ran AVG anti-virus for years and have since switched to Avast I can say that it will do all that you need and for the right price, but the main reason that I have added this to the list is for the RootKit Checker that they offer. Now if you have been around for over a month or two you can remember the Sony Rootkit mess that hit when Sony decided they had better spy on anyone that bought one of their CD’s, that proved to be one huge boondoggle for them, however there are still those out there that would like nothing better than to plant a rootkit on your system for nothing better than to grab items like your password for your bank and the pin number or maybe your password for the servers at work. Now I don’t know about you but I hate it when someone else has my pin and get into my bank accounts but if you think that is okay feel free to ignore this part of the security. And if you do don’t blame me if you are broke over night or if your boss drags you on the carpet for filling the company computer with warez or porn.

Posted by Baldy - Baldys Paradox