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

Quote from scalper21:

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.

Yup. And here's a link for tweaking "services". You really need a good reason to run MS defaults; Just because MS thinks so isn't one of those reasons.

http://smallvoid.com/tweak/winnt/services.html
 
A few years back I wrote a basic manual
for investors. It's free just drop a email address at spywareadvisor@hotmail
and I will send it to you, It's basic but better than most.
I call the nasty guys gremlinware (tm)
I have had geeks review it and they liked.
Right; no Tech support is available.

I wish you well
TJ...
 
Quote from traderNik:

Hey HoundDog

Wait a minute... is there something Norton - related on my computer now that I have installed Google Desktop? I am finding Google Desktop very convenient for locating files on my computer but I have noticed slowdowns and more memory in use lately. What do you mean by the 'Norton Trojan'? I will try a search later today but if you have a link that would be great.

This is the first I've heard of it!

btw... someone posted earlier that there's no difference between Firefox and IE in terms of security... I was under the impression that there was a big difference. Again, I will have time to check the link that was provided later.


It's actually "Google Pack" that includes 6 months of "free Norton AV"...

http://pack.google.com/about.html

By then Norton will have invaded and taken over every single proximate nook, cranny, and orfice...
And will be virtually uninstallable...
So many will end up paying through the nose for life.

My beef with Norton is that they do not respect your property...
They treat your computer as if it now belongs to them.

My beef with Google is that the Norton deal...
Blows away any pretense to "higher morality" and betrays their "philosophies".
It's all about one thing now... $$$.

And Firefox is waaaay superior than IE in terms of security...
Both by design...
And because hackers have had many years to target IE and Windows...
The softest targets of all time.

The entire virus industry was created by abject negligence on the part of MSFT.
 
Quote from Guildenstern:

So you can keep it light on the cpu's if you limit your surfing to a few secure sights. I suppose you could have a different computer not connected to the network to surf the web. Are your computers connected via wifi or lines?

What about if you had redundant multiple level firewall protection by bridging one router to the next and then disabled the dhcp on the first router? This idea would have two brand models performing the same types of firewalling. Someone could run a simple antivirus on the CPU's and visit only a few secure sights. I wonder if this would work and if it would result in significantly slower speed.

I have 5 Dells on a network...
With an old basic Linsys router and cable broadband with static IP...
Of which 3 are fast, modded, front line Dells...
That work hard all day to help me do 150 trades.

I run 20-30 software programs...
Many custom coded between 1990s and yesterday...
So I can't have port blocking firewall overkill.

A quick look at Avast in the Task Manager...
It appears to use about 5 minutes of CPU/day.

If, in theory, I decided to surf dangerous areas of the web like hacker or porn sites...
Than I would use a secondary computer.

Over 3 years I have seen maybe 20 viruses...
And 100% on XP were killed dead by Avast.

And free Sygate Firewall works ** great **, too.

End of analysis.
Keep things as simple as possible.
There is no security problem on my network.
On to 100 more important things to do.
 
Is it still possible (since sygate has been acquired by symantec) to use sygate free version for unlimited time without registering or does it stop functioning after a limited period.

Actually I shifted from Norton firewall to sygate a few days back and found sygate great.
 
Quote from Ronin#100:

Is it still possible (since sygate has been acquired by symantec) to use sygate free version for unlimited time without registering or does it stop functioning after a limited period.

Actually I shifted from Norton firewall to sygate a few days back and found sygate great.

It will work for unlimited time. I had it for some months and its ok but now I ¡m using comodo firewall. It¢s a little more annoying than sygate until you set the rules but imo it¢s the best firewall.
 
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