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Thats true. I have changed all Norton Symantec with the New and fastest NOD32 and WOW, windows is faster.
Always update your PC with the latest OS Patches, Last Virus Signature, and install a good Firewall (Hardware), to keep your computer safe.
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I have been very happy with NOD32 as well!
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Yep I'll chirp in on the Nod32 as well, I have tried about 3-5 different anti-virus programs & Nod32 is the best by far & has the best rating for catching viruses in the wild.
My 2nd choice is Avast Antivirus, it has a free license for home users & I use it on my home pc's & it seems to do the job.
I can not afford the risk of not having an AV (which is what the companies would like you to belive anyway), it just not worth it for the sake of a few bucks & cpu cycles.
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What about the free version of AVG?
C#, ASPX, SQL, novice to NHibernate
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Hi, I dont like to product bash (unconstructive negativity is a waste of everyones time) so lets just say Yes I have tried it & it caused more problems that it solved. There definatly is a market for AVG though 
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... as not doing so is by far the most likely way for your machine to get infected with something nasty. Also:
* don't open any dodgy email attachments
* if you are planning on downloading a program, do a quick google search to see if it is malware in disguise
* ideally, only install programs which are digitially signed, although, sadly, a lot of useful programs still are not
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Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft) wrote: ... as not doing so is by far the most likely way for your machine to get infected with something nasty.
as doing so is a great way of getting your machine infected with an update that renders it totally useless. 
Marc
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Ho ho, very funny. That does happen occasionally I suppose, but it's never happened to me on the five machines on which I run XP and the one on which I (reluctantly) run Vista  . Windows can roll your registry back to what it was before the update and can also uninstall an update (from Add/Remove programs, check the 'show updates' box).
Sorry if I sound a bit po-faced, but I happen to believe that Windows Update is an essential tool to keep out the gremlins and I would not like people to be put off using it by a one-line forum post. No offence taken, I hope. Certainly none intended.
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T-shirt saying: Have you downloaded your Microsoft security update today? 
djj
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I get the feeling I'm in a minority of one here 
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I personally keep auto-update on for workstations...but I NEVER EVER EVER turn them on for Servers. I have monthly maintenance set up about 2 weeks after they're release so that the patch to the patch that broke the first patch's patch is released 
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Yes, that makes a lot of sense. But how do you know when it is 'safe' to install whatever updates are pending for a particular server? Do you have a 'sacrificial goat' to install them on first, or if not, how _do_ you do it?
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Oh, that's easy. I have a virtual machine that I use as the 'sacrificial goat'. At some point during the week before maintenance I'll set up the 'Update Shrine', pray to the Gods of Redmond, turn around counter-clockwise 0010 times, then sacrafice the VM Goat. If the update is a service pack then I find a help desk technician to sacrafice prior to the Goat.
Oh yeah...on a completely unrelated subject...anyone looking for a job as a help desk tech...Vista's SP is due out soon
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Tee hee 
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Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft) wrote: Make sure you have Windows Update turned on...
I so completely disagree on this.
You should update regularly sure, but you should do it manually.
Often automatic updates install stuff that is not yet supported for your product. Small eg.: IE7.
V.
I found a living worth working for, but haven't found work worth living for.
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Hi,
I agree with you, actually. I have my computer set up to download them automatically but to install them manually. Then, if it all goes pear shaped, at least I know why.
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I have Windows Update notify me that there are updates ready for download. Then I manually download overnight (so as not to tie up resources when I'm working), then finally do a manual install of only thoses I find necessary. That's for my laptop. The CSR desktops are all identical, so I check them about once a week or whenever I see a major round of releases on my laptop. The boss's PC is his to manage (I actually have a technologically savvy boss, a rarity I know).
For Servers, I use Rackspace Managed Hosting and they thoroughly test all updates before hand applying them to my servers. After all, I'm one of two IT guys in our company and we have enough development and other infrastructure work to do. It does mean, however, that we may be a little behind on some updates (still don't have the latest SQL Server 2K5 SP2 on our SQL servers yet).
I hear what everyone is saying about Windows Update. I have an older laptop at home that runs and Athlon XP processor with a VIA chipset. One of the XP service packs made ALL my USB devices stop because it didn't support the VIA chipsets USB 2.0 drivers and VIA didn't have a fix other than to rollback the "upgrade."
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This is all very interesting (and I mean that), but I think I would still advise the 'ordinary' user (if there is such a thing) to install all updates offerred by M$. Better a (temporarily, hopefully) dead machine than giving away your bank account details to some script kiddie. But I respect the views of others in this forum, especially support professionals, who know what they're doing and have a different agenda.
This is probably going to get me flamed I know, but I think M$ are doing a difficult job reasonably well, as far as Windows Update is concerned. Windows is a prime target for hackers, so any tiny loophole is going to be exploited by someone, somewhere. OK, so they screw up occasionally, but given the size of their installed base and the technical naivety of (most of) their users, I think they're doing pretty well.
And some things I don't like about M$? Well, Vista for a start - too big, too slow and not particularly stable or compatible. And why-oh-why don't they supply Windows installation CD's with new PC's anymore? To save money, that's why (as if they needed to...). On the laptop I bought recently, I had to hack around in the partition table to get my missing 20GB back, soaked up by a (to me) useless 'recovery partition'. Ridiculous!
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I use zone alarm and AVG.
AVG is excellent, free, fast and "just works"
Zone alarm is slow, buggy and irritating, but it seems to be the best there is for Windows... unfortunately, the apps on my PC dial home without my permission so I need it
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Pardon me for asking, but why do you use both? I just use ZA and the anti-virus side of it seems fine to me. I do value the ZA popups - what is all this "Internet Explorer is trying to act as a server" all about, for example. No thanks. As for speed, I think that ZA is a memory hog, rather then being slow, but YMMV I guess.
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I gave up on Zone Alarm when their renewal process acted up. I declined to renew, since I was about to switch from Win2K to XP. I was originally intending to buy a new version of ZA after the switch.
After the expiration, Zone Alarm curiously kept issuing false alarm reports. It also forgot settings repeatedly. At one point, it was popping up a couple of times an hour about applications I had already granted access through the firewall.
Frankly, the behavior stank of an attempt to panic me into buying the renewal.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I've been using Zone Alarm (free version) for years. It's never given me any grief that I didn't ask it to (blocking something I shouldn't have, for example). Easily remedied. Maybe the lesson is to only use the free fire-wall aspects?
Like Paul, I value the popups. Besides giving one control, they're rather enlightening as to who's applications are trying to reach out and touch someone.
One could surmise that the reason the market supports various applications that perform the same functionality, rather than one or two best versions, is that both system configurations and user tastes make all of them bad actors at one point or another.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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Kerio was also giving a Personal FireWall for free sometime back. Isn't it?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson
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I use a DSL firewall combined with the standard XP/Vista firewall. According to the security experts in my company this is OK. The advantage is that the Mircosoft firewall never bother yo with questions. The disadvantage is that ones someone is inside you computer it does not protect you any more. our experst say that most virussses and trjojans will dsturb you protection anyway once they arein.
Rudolf Heijink
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The XP firewall made itself too annoying to use. It seemed to be making decisions for me (especially for MS products) - and without any easy access to change things. I suppose I could have studied how to use it, but for some reason, I no longer trusted it.
Compared this to ZoneAlarm, which has easy access to a list of all apps that have gotten its attention and the option of checkboxes for essentially always, ask me, and never for access. Very easy to fix a mistake.
Very easy to create addresses, or ranges of network addresses, to allow access to your system.
Microsoft's firewall not bothering you with questions should bother you!
As for the company expert opinions on how a firewall doesn't help once a virus gets in to your system - to a large extent, that's true about any of the protections you may have in your system. It also means either the security applications (or you) failed in keeping the system secure.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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