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MrRant

Things You Need on Your PC

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All programs below are FREE so there is really no excuse not to have some of them.

 

Anti-Virus

 

AVG Free Edition - Very good program for free. Not as good as Norton or Kaspersky but you should run SOMETHING.

 

Avast! - Same as above.

 

Panda's 38-in-1 Virus Removal Tool - This gets rid of quite a few of the more common viruses but only those 38. This is something good to run if you can't get online and is small enough to fit on a floppy.

 

Trend Micro PC-Cillian Online House Call - Online Virus Scan.

 

Panda Platinum 7 Anti-virus - Another good anti virus program that has 1 year of free updates.

 

eTrust EZ Armor Security Suite - Includes the eTrust AV program and eTrust Firewall (rebranded ZoneAlarm) which is one that a lot of corporations use and you get 1 year of free updates to the AV and the firewall. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SOLUTION.

 

Trojan Removal

 

PC Flank Trojan Scan - Online scan of your system to see if you may have a Trojan.

 

TrojanScan.com - Online scan to see if you may be infected with a Trojan.

 

Trojan Hunter - Very good program with a 30-day free trial which is just fine if you think you have been infected with one.

 

TDS-3 - Same as above. 30-day free trial with some missing features.

 

Emisoft On Demand Trojan Scanner Another free on demand Trojan Scanner.

 

 

Firewalls

 

Zone Alarm - Very good firewall that is easy to use and will keep most stuff from getting in or getting out.

 

Sygate Personal Firewall Free - Good free and easy firewall like ZoneAlarm.

 

eTrust EZ Armor Security Suite - Includes the eTrust AV program and eTrust Firewall (rebranded ZoneAlarm) which is one that a lot of corporations use and you get 1 year of free updates to the AV and the firewall. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SOLUTION if you don't already have a firewall and antivirus you are currently using.

 

Kerio Personal Firewall - Rules based firewall like Zone Alarm. More powerful as far as rule sets but not for the beginner.

 

Note: XP users please for the love of God at least turn on the included firewall. Please? It's better than nothing.

 

System Scans - See what is open on your computer and where you may be open to attack.

 

BroadbandReports Port Scan - See what ports are open on your computer.

 

PC Flank Stealth Test - Make sure your computer is unseen to the outside world.

 

PC Flank Browser Test - See if your browser reveals any of your personal information.

 

PC Flank Exploits Test - This test will detect how vulnerable your computer is to exploits attacks.

 

PC Flank Advanced Port Scanner - This test will scan your system for open ports that can be used in attacks on your computer.

 

GRC LeakTest Program - Good test to make sure your firewall is behaving as it should.

 

GRC ShieldsUP! - Another firewall scan to see what ports are opened or not.

 

 

 

Spyware/Adware Removing Tools

 

Spybot S&D - One of the most up-to-date removal tools you can get. You'll find a lot of crap on your computer

 

Ad-Aware - Good program. Not as good as Spybot but will pick up some stuff Spybot might miss. Same with Spybot picking up stuff Ad-Aware misses.

 

Spyware Blaster Another spyware removal tool. Free but I haven't tried it yet.

 

HijackTHIS - Removes browser hijacking (redirecting to other sites like Casino site when you are trying to go to Google.com etc).

 

Browsers

 

Mozilla 1.4 - Includes pop-up blocking in the browser itself.

 

Mozilla Firebird - Really cool. Has pop-up blocking AND tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing owns.

 

Avant Browser - Addon to Internet Explorer and adds pop-up blocking and you can have multiple browser windows. Updated constantly.

 

Opera - Good browser and very fast. There is a free version with a ad banner so if it doesn't bother you then its a good choice as well.

 

E-mail Clients

 

Incredimail - Has cool features like backgrounds, handwritten sigs, etc.

 

Eudora - Alternate to Outlook and Outlook Express which most viruses are targeted at. Free version has small 3/4" add in the lower right but not really noticable. Paid version also includes SPAM filter.

 

Mozilla 1.4 - Includes pop-up blocking in the browser itself plus includes Communicator E-mail client that is very good.

 

 

 

SPAM Blockers

 

Mailwasher - Good program. I use this at home. You run it before you check e-mail with your e-mail client and it will automatically tag e-mail as SPAM (you can also add stuff to blacklist) and can bounce the e-mail back and also delete it before it hits your Inbox. The bouncing is good because it gives the appearance that your e-mail addy doesn't exist. Free version only checks one account. Note: This is for POP3 e-mail (ie. Hotmail, Yahoo mail is not available but the Paid version can check Hotmail.)

 

Shoot The Messenger - A small (only 22Kb, takes five seconds to download on a slow connection) and simple to use program that will stop Windows Messenger Service spam (gray boxes that appear in the middle of the screen.)

 

 

Pop Up Blocking

 

Google Toolbar - Add-on for Internet Explorer. Google Labs has some cool shit and the newest thing included in their Toolbar is pop up add blocking. Easy to use and install/uninstall.

 

Pop-Up Stopper Free Edition - I've heard this works fairly well but I have never used it personally.

 

-------------------------

 

You should at least get one of the virus scanners and one of the firewalls I posted. You will do yourself a favor by being somewhat protected from viruses and worms like MSBlast and SoBig. I am amazed at how many people foolishly run their computers with no protection whatsoever and end up fucking over everyone else in the process.

Edited by MrRant

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Someone watches the Screensavers and/or visits the Tech TV website. I do believe this is Patrick Nortons list of stuff from the other night.

 

I use Google ToolBar with the pop-up blocker and I don't know why anyone would need/want to use anything else for pop-up blocking.

 

I also have Ad-Aware, and I'd say that works fairly well.

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Guest fk teale

Big hugs to Rant and whoever pinned the post. A thread like this should be the default Windows background.

 

May I also suggest the following free shit:

 

Ad Blockers

 

Webwasher - Blocks banner ads and other objects (scripts, flash animations, etc.) by dimension or URL, and provides rudimentary pop-up protection (panicware's Pop-Up Stopper is excellent). It can also selectively filter for referrers, cookies, and other tracking mechanisms. Highly scalable & customizable.

 

Instant Messaging

 

Trillian - This is more ease of use, but it will get rid of the ads in IM clients as well. It consolidates AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC into a single, simple interface without losing functionality.

 

Download Managers

 

Getright - Lets you pause and resume, segment, and schedule downloads. Integrates with your anti-virus software to scan downloads when they finish.

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Guest The Old Me

This is pretty great Rant, and hopefully if people read they won't need to start new threads about this stuff.

 

I'm at work and don't have the link, but can someone post a link to Reg Vac? They have a nice, easy trial version. It comes in handy for me anyway.

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Guest El Satanico

How often should you run ad-aware and spybot? I currently run ad-aware once a week.

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Guest I'm That Damn Zzzzz

Here's a bit more. Feel free to make it suck less.

 

Video/Audio Playback and Editing

 

Winamp classic.winamp.com

Media player, probably the best.

 

KazaaLite Codec Pack http://doa2.host.sk/codecpack.htm or http://doa2.host.sk/download2.htm

Enables your computer to play back many different media formats, including DIVX.

 

 

VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/index

Great for processing and converting video, mainly AVI and DIVX files.

 

Tsunami MPEG http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html

Useful for making mpeg files and VideoCD files (to play in a DVD player.)

 

 

Exact Audio Copy http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

Somewhat complicated but very effective cd ripper.

 

Audiograbber http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net

Simple to use cd ripper with lots of features, can rip copy protected cds. Now completely free!!!

 

 

DVDRhelp http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs that can be played on your standalone DVD Player from video sources like DVD, Video, TV, Cam or downloaded movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM, WMV and ASF. We also have an extensive list of standalone DVD Players with compatibility information such as CD-R/W, DVD±R/W, VCD, SVCD, MP3 and more.

Also lots of other useful information about video and audio.

 

(Edit: formatted better.)

Edited by I'm That Damn Zzzzz

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Well I'm screwed. I ran that AVG virus thing and after only 1 gig of my computer being scanned I already have 200+ files infected with Win32/Parite.

 

EDIT: Make that 300+ and a lot of them are serious files like System32.exe.

 

EDIT AGAIN: My God!! My computer will be wiped out if I clean up all this! It was working just fine with the virus there until AVG started going crazy over all the viruses.

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Wheres the included firewall in XP?

1.Click Start->Control Panel

2.Open up the Network Connections Icon

3.Right-Click On LAN or Highspeed Internet Icon (or the Dial-up Connection if you are using Dial Up)

4.Click Properties

5.Click on the Advanced Tab

6.Check the box for the Internet Connection Firewall

7.Click Ok.

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Someone watches the Screensavers and/or visits the Tech TV website. I do believe this is Patrick Nortons list of stuff from the other night.

 

I use Google ToolBar with the pop-up blocker and I don't know why anyone would need/want to use anything else for pop-up blocking.

 

I also have Ad-Aware, and I'd say that works fairly well.

Eh.. don't watch Tech TV very much. The Broadband Reports Security forum is a good place for info.

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Well I'm screwed. I ran that AVG virus thing and after only 1 gig of my computer being scanned I already have 200+ files infected with Win32/Parite.

 

EDIT: Make that 300+ and a lot of them are serious files like System32.exe.

 

EDIT AGAIN: My God!! My computer will be wiped out if I clean up all this! It was working just fine with the virus there until AVG started going crazy over all the viruses.

Well it should be able to clean the files without deleting it. You may need to go and actually buy Norton. You can go to Symantec's website and purchase Norton AntiVirus and download it directly.

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After 3 1/2 gigs I'm now up to 700+ infected files. Say goodbye to every program on my computer.

 

How much can I do to viruses with AVG? Does it completely get rid of them or just quarentine the files?

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Okay thank you. I hope I don't lose anything.

I would try cleaning and if that doesn't work you will have some decisions to make. You probably got it from Kazaa from what I can see. If you download anything from stuff like that your should Virus Scan it before opening it.

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You should include Opera under the popup blocking list.

 

Also very important is Windows Update.

I would have but it has ads if you don't buy it. I'm trying to post things that have no ads and does pop up blocking. Opera is very good though.

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Or just virus scan if after you download that way you can clean the file before it infects others.

 

Run a full system scan at least once every two months while you are in the shower or something.

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You should include Opera under the popup blocking list.

 

Also very important is Windows Update.

I would have but it has ads if you don't buy it. I'm trying to post things that have no ads and does pop up blocking. Opera is very good though.

In that case, it's all about the Avant Browser, which includes the pop-up stopper and no ads at all.

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How good is Norton in reality? I've heard bad things about it, even though I've installed it through my school (they offer it for free, and even give us subscription codes); I've only once detected a virus, and that was a pain in the ass and all... but what is the likelyhood that it simply hasn't detected it?

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How good is Norton in reality? I've heard bad things about it, even though I've installed it through my school (they offer it for free, and even give us subscription codes); I've only once detected a virus, and that was a pain in the ass and all... but what is the likelyhood that it simply hasn't detected it?

I have Norton Internet Security which is a firewall and virus scanner and I think its great. When someone tries to get into your computer it stops them and gives you a message telling you their I.P. address and brings up a map showing where in the world they are from. Also, if you download something that has a virus it will immediately delete the file with no harm done to you. All in all I give it two thumbs up.

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