How safe is it to be online without a firewall/antivirus

Bob111 · May 17, 2006

Quote from Norp:

Has anyone used Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite?
Pro / Con ?????

Thanx !
Norp

i'm using it on my son's computer. not to see who is coming from outside, but what program is trying to go on web from inside. works for me

Alpinetrader · May 17, 2006

Quote from scalper21:

AGAIN I HAVE TO SAY THIS AGAIN YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER HAVE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE RUNNING ON YOUR TRADING COMPUTER!!!!!!!!!!!

Why ? antivirus software consumes cpu power ? make lag ?

Thanks for the explanation

tomcole · May 17, 2006

Try visitng

http://www2.dslreports.com/forum/security

and search for their comments.

Very useful site.

nononsense · May 17, 2006

Quote from tomcole:

Try visitng

http://www2.dslreports.com/forum/security

and search for their comments.

Very useful site.

Very good site. I used it a lot.

nononsense · May 17, 2006

Quote from Sevenout:

My pc has...

No anti-virus
No Firewall
No pop up blockers
No router (Verizon EVDO)
No XP (Win2000 pro)

Then I use "IE Clean" software ($50)
and set my browser real tight.

The result will be a lean very fast system with no viruses, pop-ups, or spyware. I have 3+ years running like this with zero problems.

This sounds a bit like playing Russian Roulette.
Better get yourself a hardware firewall up front. This should not slow your traffic in any significant way.

This is much safer than to try catching the crap after it's in place. In fact most popular software tools miss a lot of dangerous stuff.

I'm not sure about your IE Clean soft. If it only cleans IE, it wouldn't do much good at all.

Don't forget that hardware firewalls are still no absolute guarantee against attacks. However, if you would only run a hardware firewall without any other protection software, you already did most of the job.

nononsense

romik · May 17, 2006

sorted, it was anti virus interference, firewall still on.

cmaxb · May 17, 2006

I don't have a firewall or anti-virus, and I've never been hacked. Since Windows 95. I do turn off most services however.

fildi101 · May 17, 2006

Interactive Brokers TWS works on a Mac.. safer and more stable as a trading platform..(though you'll most likely need a PC on hand as well for charting and analysis.)

alanack · May 17, 2006

Quote from Sevenout:

My pc has...

No anti-virus
No Firewall
No pop up blockers
No router (Verizon EVDO)
No XP (Win2000 pro)

Then I use "IE Clean" software ($50)
and set my browser real tight.

The result will be a lean very fast system with no viruses, pop-ups, or spyware. I have 3+ years running like this with zero problems.

This sounds good... could you be more specific on how to tighten up the browser security settings? Thanks.

scalper21 · May 17, 2006

Quote from Alpinetrader:

Why ? antivirus software consumes cpu power ? make lag ?

Thanks for the explanation

Yes antivirus software will run in the background and will slow your computer down.

A good thing for everyone to do is press control/alt/delete. Then check the processes tab. Any exe. that looks fishy you can google and see if it should be disabled.

In general the less programs running on your computer the faster the computer will be.

I worked at one of the Chicago exchanges as a tech support for traders. You would be amazed at how many running processes some traders would have!!! They would call us(exchange) complaining that their order was slow or their quotes were slow. Almost 100% of the time they would have norton running in the background or they would have 40-50 processes running on their computer.