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Your computer, you should have total control over it.

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Wow Clarity, I hope you are head of an IT department by the way you made this post, awesome work. I wanted to add a few things that could hopefully help people.

First off, Trend Micro has a great online scanner, I show up at a lot of sites and get "John's computer is running like crap" and I ask why to hear he doesn't have any Anti Virus or PC protection, so my first step will be to go to http://www.trendmicro.com and use thier online scan.

The second would have been AdAware, but I started my reply before reading the whole thread, so I noticed that's mentioned. TM's online scan will catch most spy ware but a lot of hi-jackers will take that over, so having AdAware from lavasoft on your pc at all times never hurts.

Realistically, the best thing you can do for both performance and protection is to get a hardware firewall, at this point they are so cheap it doesn't make sense to not have one. Having one is an added layer of protection, and doesn't mean you should leave the windows native one off, have it running to your personalized settings so that should you get infected with anything that wants to mass mail out, etc... then you are asked and protected.

One last note, if a message looks like it's from paypal, your credit card company or a bank always go to the site manually and don't use the links in your mail. Phishing is becoming all too common and mails come looking legit, there's a reason, thats because they are all one big image. If Ebay says your account is suspended, then open your browser and go to ebay.com, DON'T EVER USE THE LINK IN YOUR E-MAIL.

Clarity, there's parts of this thread I would like to pass along to some of my users, may I have permission to do so?
 
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Having one is an added layer of protection, and doesn't mean you should leave the windows native one off, have it running to your personalized settings so that should you get infected with anything that wants to mass mail out, etc... then you are asked and protected.
Click to expand...

Small point here... Windows firewall in XP is only inbound. It doesn't do anything with outbound traffic.
 
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I have a question and wondering if someone can help me regarding Outlook Express and Outlook. I have used Outlook Express as my default mail client since I have obtained his PC about 4 months ago. However, I did know that Outlook was also installed on this machine. I often check my e-mail from Internet Explorer and it has always gone to Outlook Express. Today when I tried it, it went to Outlook and there was even a message in Outlook that was sent today.

I guess my question probably is does anyone know how to change the "settings" so that I will only have one default mail client which would be Outlook Express. Thanks.
 
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LitlBuck;809866; said:
I have a question and wondering if someone can help me regarding Outlook Express and Outlook. I have used Outlook Express as my default mail client since I have obtained his PC about 4 months ago. However, I did know that Outlook was also installed on this machine. I often check my e-mail from Internet Explorer and it has always gone to Outlook Express. Today when I tried it, it went to Outlook and there was even a message in Outlook that was sent today.

I guess my question probably is does anyone know how to change the "settings" so that I will only have one default mail client which would be Outlook Express. Thanks.
Click to expand...

open IE, tools, options, programs - choose the default mail program
 
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I think it's probably time to modernize this thread.

I still use a lot of things mentioned in it (K9, sTunnel, AdAware, Spybot, Enigmail with GnuPG for Windows, etc.), but I've added new things as well. For example, NoScript for Firefox is outstanding and should be built-in, imo. I report spam to KnujOn.com, I run OTR (Off the Record) encryption through GAIM, and so on.

This time around, there are far more people around the site than the last time I put this together, so I'm hoping this is something that can be collaboratively constructed.

What do you use and recommend that keeps your PC clean and secure? Are there other groups like KnujOn? Does someone have a particularly successful K9 blacklist? Does anyone have Eraser working properly in Vista?

Just throwing out random questions. Post your thoughts here, and we'll (at some point, as I can make no guarantees about when or how I'll put more time into this) we'll update that initial post.
 
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Clarity;810805; said:
I think it's probably time to modernize this thread.

I still use a lot of things mentioned in it (K9, sTunnel, AdAware, Spybot, Enigmail with GnuPG for Windows, etc.), but I've added new things as well. For example, NoScript for Firefox is outstanding and should be built-in, imo. I report spam to KnujOn.com, I run OTR (Off the Record) encryption through GAIM, and so on.

This time around, there are far more people around the site than the last time I put this together, so I'm hoping this is something that can be collaboratively constructed.

What do you use and recommend that keeps your PC clean and secure? Are there other groups like KnujOn? Does someone have a particularly successful K9 blacklist? Does anyone have Eraser working properly in Vista?

Just throwing out random questions. Post your thoughts here, and we'll (at some point, as I can make no guarantees about when or how I'll put more time into this) we'll update that initial post.
Click to expand...

I use Trend Micro's PC-Cillin Internet Security. I really like Trend's stuff. We use it on our corporate network as well. But this version for the stand-alone environment is nice, it has security as well as tools to be proactive against not just viruses, but also spyware built right into the package. There are a lot of things you can configure to have it routinely scan for (again) not only viruses, but also any security threats to your system. It has a built in firewall, wi-fi intrusion detection, private data protection and email scanning as well. Just a good, solid package for your pc. For the network/server environment, we use Trend's ServerProtect.
 
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Big Papa;810861; said:
I use Trend Micro's PC-Cillin Internet Security. I really like Trend's stuff. We use it on our corporate network as well. But this version for the stand-alone environment is nice, it has security as well as tools to be proactive against not just viruses, but also spyware built right into the package. There are a lot of things you can configure to have it routinely scan for (again) not only viruses, but also any security threats to your system. It has a built in firewall, wi-fi intrusion detection, private data protection and email scanning as well. Just a good, solid package for your pc. For the network/server environment, we use Trend's ServerProtect.
Click to expand...

I use that as well and really like it...
 
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Just to make life easier on any future compilation, if you guys can post whether a product is commercial or free, and a link for it, that would be a big help. A description (like the one provided for Trend, above) is terrific.
 
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avast: antivirus. It's free, it's good.
Process Explorer: by the company formerly known as winternals (bought by microsoft). It's a great alternative to the windows task manager, and much more powerful. (free)
Foxit PDF reader: because Adobe reader is WAY too bulky and takes way too long to load. (free)
PDF printer: Print anything into a pdf or image format. (free)
VLC: who needs windows media player anyway? (free)
Portable Apps: anything from here is awesome. I have an apache/mysql server running on my flash drive with firefox, filezilla, vlc and gaim, so anywhere I go I can have what I need to function effectively. (free)
Real Alternative Player, allows .rm files to play in windows media (free)
Filzip: I use this instead of winzip and winrar. It occasionally has a hiccup, but it's pretty reliable and not a big resource hog. (free)
SiteAdvisor: Early warning if you are going to a bad site or not. A must have for the inexperienced internet user (to prevent mucho spyware) or anybody for that matter. (free)

Darik's Boot And Nuke: If you're giving away a PC or hard drive and have to be sure that the hard drive is wiped, this is what you need. (free)
I don't use it, but if you need encryption... TrueCrypt is the place to get it. (free, of course)

That's a fair list for now. We'll see if I remember what else I use everyday and forget about.
 
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I'll second DBAN and TrueCrypt. Two of the most valuable security tools out there and both are free and easy to use.

For free PDF creation, I use CutePDF

For a free Winzip alternative, I use IZarc

Bart's PE Builder is a free tool that will create a bootable live copy of Windows XP on CD or DVD. Tons of useful plugins including Firefox, CD burning, disk diagnostics, etc. can be included. A great tool if Windows won't boot and you need to modify system files or backup your data to a network share or external USB drive or CD.
 
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