How to: Keep your system in tip-top shape and battle-hardened against viruses/malware

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Haus of Tech Support > How to: Keep your system in tip-top shape and battle-hardened against viruses/malware

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Alereon posted:

You might also link to this site here

I'm confused - do both sections of that page have the Windows 7 ISO with SP1 integrated? Both headings (Download Windows 7 ISO with SP1/Download Windows 7 SP1 Integrated ISO) suggest to me they're both linking to integrated ISOs, but if that was the case surely they'd not list two sections?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2012 23:57

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 19:46

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

ryanbruce posted:

One batch is from Softpedia, one batch is from Digital Underground.

Ah right, so they're identical ISOs for each product edition from either source?

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 21:08

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Mak0rz posted:

I love Secunia PSI, but holy gently caress is it ever hard to get it to open sometimes. It's telling me that I have some things that require manual updates, but trying to open it just gets me stuck on the "Loading..." splash screen. This is not the first time I've encountered this problem. Googling it told me to add https://*.secunia.com to the list of trusted sites in Internet Options, but that did nothing at all to help.

It manages to keep things updated on its own in the background just fine. It's only bothersome when I actually have to bring up the window. How the hell do I fix this?

They released a new version of PSI about a month ago which fixes that problem. Ironically, PSI doesn't automatically update itself.

http://secunia.com/products/consumer/psi/sys_req/

# ¿ May 22, 2013 22:55

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Krazyface posted:

I'm loving fed up with McAfee. The OP recommends Microsoft Security Essentials; is it an appropriate replacement?

I use NOD32 Antivirus personally, but Security Essentials is decent and better than McAfee in terms of simplicity and system resource usage.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 13:23

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

I've been using NOD32 AV for about 7 years now and I've never had any issues with system stability or performance, plus it's saved my rear end from a fair few potential infections.

I've got 3 family members using Microsoft Security Essentials. Is there a consensus anymore on what's the best free AV? Reading the last few posts has worried me that I've leaving my family's machine's vulnerable. Might just go ahead and buy 3 NOD32 licences.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2013 18:05

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Orange_Lazarus posted:

Yeah, the company we use installed MSE (When we had a subscription with NOD) on all of our computers when we got new PCs and our secretary managed to get that new cryptovirus on her computer, which of course encrypted every office file she had access to.

I didn't notice NOD was missing until a week later and had our employer call the company so they could come in and install it on all the computers. Then my co-workers were all having startup issues and it turned out they forgot to take MSE off after they installed NOD.

I take it it was on Windows 7? Windows 8.x should turn off MSE automatically when another AV is installed.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 15:06

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

There's a lot of talk about best free AVs. What about the best paid AV? I've been using NOD32 for years and it's served me well. Is it beaten by Kaspersky these days?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 00:09

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Khablam posted:

There's no compelling reason to change from what you're using, providing you're on the latest edition. If your license is up for renewal or something, then Kaspersky does test a little better.

Avast! is the compelling free option, because it tests within the margin of error for the top-tier paid solutions.

ESET, Kaspersky and MSE usually show no false positives (though MSE has failed to acquire even basic certification by both major independent test labs since early 2013).

My NOD32 license isn't up til later this year, it's my family's Windows 8.1 machines I want to get AV software for. I'm tempted to go for NOD32 because I've been using it for years, but Kaspersky seems to consistently get good press too. Decision, decisions.

Also, does antivirus suffice for the average person these days, or should I be looking at one of the suites that offers more stuff, like Kaspersky Pure?

WattsvilleBlues fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jan 27, 2014

# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 17:05

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Orange_Lazarus posted:

Man, I thought the Nod license would have included free udates like malwarebytes. How much does it cost to renew?

With my NOD32 home licence, I basically subscribe for a year and get any new release within that year included in the price. I bought it through their own site though, I don't know what it's like through third parties.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 16:42

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Mo_Steel posted:

As an aside, one of the important steps in protecting your PC is backups, and I've been handling backups to an external HDD for ages now. Does anyone have solid recommendations for web-based backup services?

I've been using Carbonite for the last few years without problems. The only thing is, if you want to back up off your external hard drive, you need a more expensive subscription (though this may have changed since I bought my license a few years ago).

# ¿ Mar 1, 2014 14:54

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Puseklepp posted:

So I figured out the password to my BIOS and changed the boot order to boot from USB first. But when I restart my PC with the USB with Windows Defender Offline plugged in, nothing happens. The computer just skips straight to booting up like normal, as there was no USB plugged in. I've tried all the different USB entries, and no difference. Not sure what the problem is, or how to fix this...

Make sure that you've got legacy USB support enabled in BIOS.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2014 14:08

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Jarl posted:

Just a thank you.

Been looking around for a new malware scanner. Ad-aware stopped being usefull a long time ago, and later Spybot-Search and Destroy went the same way. Really happy I found this thread; Malwarebytes is perfect.

There are also spin-offs of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, such as Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit and Malwarebytes Chameleon.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2014 19:48

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

I'm sure there's probably a better place to ask this but I couldn't find anything so I hope it's okay if I ask here. I have a co-worker that needs to send someone a large 110mb file but outlook apparently and understandably won't send anything that big. If I was a home this would be a simple issue but since it's work related I want to upload it somewhere somewhat secure where only he and his recipient will be able to open it.

For the time being I'm uploading it to Dropbox (20 minute upload. Our Internet is really slow) but I was wondering if there was a better place I could use in the future?

Could you upload it to OneDrive and then share the link?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2014 19:52

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

ryanbruce posted:

I've decided to stop being a lazy rear end in a top hat, and am going to go through and clean up the first two posts.

If there's any changes that you want to see, let me know!

So far I've added a new section that highlights the importance of backing up files, attack vectors, and how to keep Facebook feeds a bit less spammy.

Microsoft Security Essentials/Windows Defender - does this need replaced as the free AV of choice?

I know some of the paid ones kinda fight it out for the top spot in terms of detection/performance/system impact etc., but it seems we could recommend a few Goon-approved solutions. I have used NOD32 for about 7 or 8 years and have never had an infection that's got past it (I run manual scans with other programs now and again - always comes up clean). Talking about AVs is like talking about politics with some people but a little info on the top contenders is reasonable, I think.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 15:35

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 19:46

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

I've been using NOD32 for about 10 years and so far as I know I've never had a virus with it, and I do manual scans with other anti-malware solutions about once a week. It''s managed to catch a bunch of dodgy things over the years, especially when just browsing the web.

Friends of mine who used MSE/Windows Defender have almost all had problems with viruses, and most of the time I just wipe their Windows installs and start from scratch. When I suggest they try and buy NOD32, I don't think I've had anyone come back to me with virus issues since.

I know it's anecdotal, but I suppose you go with what works for you - MSE has not worked adequately for the majority of people I know that have used it.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 14:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Haus of Tech Support > How to: Keep your system in tip-top shape and battle-hardened against viruses/malware