hi guys,

what's the views on net stealthiness. I haven't got a clue about firewalls and other security measures. What do people think I should do ? I've a feeling ppl are screwing around in my box. I've got an automatic internet explorer opening virus.
Any advice boys ?

great, an easy answer.

Crack the whip.

Free Zone Alarm Firewall
Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite

As of 2005 , ZoneAlarms anti-virus and anti-spyware scanning was kind of slow but it was on a slower computer. The on-access scanning was just fine though.

ZoneAlarm has the best firewall I've ever seen.

As far as anti-virus goes , Norton Anti-Virus does pretty well , its on access scanning can get annoying at times , but it can be turned off or disabled temporarily.

The Windows Firewall does not block outgoing communications from programs of any kind. ZoneAlarm can and does depending on your settings. How about a nice trojan sending out your passwords through the Windows firewall? ZoneAlarm watches programs for suspicious behavior in the registry , for hijacking programs and in other ways. It can alert and block potential problems before they are one.

Besides not shutting down properly all the time , there's nothing wrong with Norton Antivirus. Haven't had a computer virus in years and if I had I'm pretty sure NAV would have caught it. Not having any viruses is due to a good firewall and keeping away from malicious webpages.

norton is crap, use avast or avg, a firewall, windows firewall at least, use a router, don't use internet explorer, always update your software.

if you chose to go linux, don't go down the gentoo route, actually dont go for linux on the desktop period.

They havent maintained it as well as kerio did.

Why not? I think Ubuntu owns Windows on all fronts.

While I agree, I think somebody switching to Linux would be better off with Debian or something, I just found Ubuntu annoying.

My advice is to get a router or some other form of hardware firewall.

Just to jump on the bashing bandwagon, when some shmuck calls in to Internet tech support and the issue is even remotely to do with thier firewall .... it's Norton. I don't even ask if they have 'a' firewall aymore. "Do you have Norton? Disable it. Everything's working now? Awesome, thanks for calling in, get security that isn't crap kthx."

My setup:
- Antivirus: Avast. Used to use AVG, but that interfered with some older software.
- Firewall: Comodo. Used to use Kerio Personal Firewall, but that didn't play nice with my laptop. ZoneAlarm had similar problems.
- Browser: Firefox with GreaseMonkey and Adblock Plus plugins (because I hate ads). Opera for some special tasks.

I don't use antivirus or any firewalls. Nobody bothers attacking me on dialup.

- Grooben -
Of course they do , if you had a firewall maybe you'd notice.

Yeah, anyone I know that I see Norton's on their computer...I smack them repeatedly! It makes everything slow and usually screws up more than it fixes/prevents.

To le_y_mistar:
What is your problem? All you seem to post about is not using Linux and especially not Gentoo... Are you secretly a Bill Gates alter boy?::);D8-)