Of course, you’re then leaving yourself open to the uninformed actions of your teenage child… ;b

“Shutdown Windows’ servers” is a program, which makes Microsoft Windows XP Home, Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 much more secure from attacks from the network. Other Windows releases I cannot support until now.”

U forget to add that ur advice is for NT users not for win95, 98 or ME users. Dont ya think its important or do you think no one will use 9x systems anymore?

Of course most people who do not know what they are doing DO need firewall, one of the many reasons are: Beginners DO not patch their software and still click on every possible link they see and ignore system warnings etc (or their friends).

What use is for beginner to see the system processes etc, good if they recognize from these tools that MSN is starting up every time they boot PC lol.

Best would be ShutDown WinServers (shut down NT services - u can do it manually, google!) + Software Firewall + Hardware firewall(most cheep routers will do, note: H-W F-W do not see if any program is hijacked). No need to say u need AV and anti spyware.

I was using Sygate Pro and started to test Lavasoft Firewall(seems good), and nothing is better in the end compared to Nod32 if ya SET IT UP RIGHT WAY. Some AV makers leak “independent” tests where Nod32 looks bad - do not believe these sites. Even for beginner with default settings - nod32 is good!

Of course.. then comes the money part… well, everyone finds hes own ways how to use software who asks to much € or $
One other question, all what u have on ur PC, is it not worth 25… 50 dollars a year to buy some good sec software? Most people want everything for nothing, not thinking all the months, years hard work and money what takes to make good software. Would You work for nothing?

One other thing: there is difference for what u need on New PC v. infected PC

Use Linux? Like there would be no hack and holes in usual linux system, hope so. Xandros Pro is what i use, u can run some Windows software on this to and its really easy to use. Use Mac? If ya have so much money, and do not want to use most fun software what is out there, why not. But its like recommending to change your house (to get warm) from Estonia to one in Hawaii because your Windows is broken lol

Please google about software before u install it, these 5 minutes do not kill u

srry for bad english, but i hope u got my point ppl
- Waffa Drunker -

Microsoft Windows security for computer illiterates (Good title hun? )
http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2005/12/microsoft-windows-security-for.html

Hmm…I bet someone will now want to create a thread about should you use
Ghost or another program to backup your drive , but hey at least its backed
up!

One of my partners has put together a fairly comprehensive Beginners Guide To Securing A PC.  However, Martin has one piece of advice which I don’t personally think is a good tip for beginners.   He argues that a software firewall gives…

The WinXP SP2 Firewall is very passive so it’s ok to leave it on at all times as a layered defense.

Having a firewall can stop attacks by the mere fact that most ports are blocked from the outside world, stopping many from even finding the machine in the first place. If an exploit gets onto the machine to “press” say zonealarms off button, it is already too late anyway. (Otherwise, how did the exploit get there.)

It will ALWAYS be a race against those who infect, and those who attempt to infect. A firewall (even a software one) is just another level that attempts to stave off the wolves

Using a software firewall is simply to protect you at the application level. Trojans, take advantage of dll injection on IEXPLORER.EXE to bypass the firewall, but that only works if, 1) you have IE set to auto allow and/or 2) you don’t have any specific rules setup.

So maybe for the average user is a software firewall not needed, but I definitly recommend using one. Sygate detects .DLL injection, which my linksys router doesn’t do.