Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: Terry Bodman on February 03, 2005, 09:04:39 PM
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The title says "General Discussion" so I assume this comment and question are appropriate. If not, I'm sure Rodney will delete me.
Shaw now offers a free virus, etc. protection program to accompany its high speed internet connection. I currently use Norton Internet Security as do many others but it costs annually. Anyone had experience with the Shaw Protection Program? I would appreciate your comments.
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I tryed this shaw thing to.... for some reason it wouldnt let me on the net the next day?? ??? once i deleted it i could go on the net very weird.!
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Kind of like the "peril sensitive sunglasses" from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy computer game... they were supposed to turn dark to protect you from peril. But they were just solid black all the time. 8)
Disabling your internet entirely is a very effective way to protect yourself from viruses. ;D They should be commended for truth in advertising.
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I thought of trying it...but... like you Terry, I was looking for input from someone who's tried it already.
As Fulc stated, download AVG free edition off the grisoft site. I've been told by one computer hack that it's the best going. I had Nortons...tried Trend Micro...but AVG is good. All you need with it is a good firewall...hack gave me one today at work, but I forget the site now. :-[
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If your on high speed make sure you have a Router it is probably the best fire wall you can get, but you still have to back in up with software. (Norton etc..)
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My best advice is don't use anything! I am running Windows XP Pro and haven't even bothered to load any service packs on but have downloaded all the updates availble from microsoft minus SP1 + SP2. I'm using NAV 2003 that I haven't updated since it expired in early 2004. I do a lot of online browsing and downloading and never have a problem and my computer runs as fast a new.
All these new fancy programs and service packs now a days make your computer more vunderable because people are always trying to crack them and infect your computer. If you stick with older programs no one bothers to hack them anymore and there bugs/worms/viruses/spyware etc that they send out are useless. Give it a try!
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zone alarm is a good FREE firewall.
;D
Have you experienced an ungodly amount of popups with Zone Alarm? It is free and good, however, I, and my friend too, experienced way too many popups. They disapeared when I unloaded Zone Alarm and went with Norton. Norton also picked up a couple of nondestructive viruses that Zone Alarm didn't detect.
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If you want a secure machine, short of installing a hardware router/firewall, here's what you do:
1. Install a software firewall such as ZoneAlarm (http://www.zonelabs.com). I have used this firewall for years and have had no problems with popups.
2. Install a virus scanner (such as AVG, mentioned above), and *keep the virus definition files up to date*. If you don't keep these up to date, your virus scanner is next to useless.
3. Put on all the latest updates provided by Microsoft at the Windows Update website. It's best to set up your machine to automatically check for updates and notify you when they're available, because doing these in a timely manner is extremely important.
If you do these three things and harm comes your way, then you are very unlucky. If you fail to do one or more of these things and no harm comes your way, then the only explanation for it is that you got lucky.
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Several of my buddies did try Shaw's version. Every single one of them then promptly deleted it entirely. Too damn slow, made access and speed waaaay clunky. Thus, I've made a point of declining the offer.
I've gone the route suggested by Zaphod above exactly, and now run two spyware programs as well (they're as much of a pain in the butt as the viruses these days) and never had any serious problems. AVG and Zone Alarm function extremely well... on this machine that is. For advice regarding spyware, etc, see: http://forum.fishbc.com/index.php?showtopic=16600
Cheers,
Nog
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Yep Zaphod you're very right. ZoneAlarm is the best wev'e ever used. We tried Norton's and found it to be lacking and then a friend gave us a copy of ZoneAlarm with Anti-Virus and since then wev'e never looked back. When that ZoneAlarm expired we looked and phoned everywhere to find one that had anti-virus but the only place we could find it was off it's home web site, so we
went ahead and purchased it. 19.95 US. for one year and we also bought a backup in case of emergencies for 6.99 US. It sure works a whole lot better for us than Nortons ever did. ;)
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I'm on shaw and it hasnt slowed my system,if any it has made it faster with no more popups and stuff like that.i had nothing but problems with zone lab and norton was slowing my computer down.I use spy sweeper once a week and it cleans out the spyware with no problems....I'm happy!!!!
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for zonealarm theres only the 15 free trial!??
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There is a free version. They just try not to make it too obvious on their home page ;-)
Check here:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp
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Thanks for all the input. I found the comments very helpful and will be exploring zonealarm. Will also ignore Shaw's program for the present. :D
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If you use the auto update with Nortons you only get a year of virus defintions.So do the manual download and it seems not to have a dead line attached with it?I have used it for 2 years now and have not had a problem update the defintions.If you have already used the live update totally uninstall it that means all the registry keys as well then reinsatll but dont use the auto uodate feature.It should work fine from there.
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Although I haven't tried it myself, it seems that using a browser other than Internet Explorer, solves most of the security problems. In conjunction with AVG and Zonealarm, some friends have moved to Firefox browser with no problems and fast downloads. The other one to try is Opera which I believe is even faster and again with no problems.
It seems the hackers are only interested in smacking Microsoft. Shame they can't target Marine Harvest!!
My Firewall comes from Kerio which I paid for although they do a free version as well. Set up properly it is brilliant!
Colin