Experiences with non-techies

[maulemall]

5 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

You're supposed to use Norton's removal tool for whichever software of theirs that you use.  If you didn't use then no offense but it technically would've been your fault you ran into trouble.  I've always used the correct removal tool and never had any trouble removing Norton before installing the new version each year.  Been doing that since 2006.

yes if you notice I said 2001 and even later their removal tool didn't remove all of their bloatware.

Since I never even suggested that I had any trouble I'm not sure where you are conjuring that from.

I understand that some Techies think that this is all rocket science but some of us actually work on rockets and play with computers.

[BingoFishy]

4 hours ago, Clanscorpia said:

Look at this. Its legit cringe

1) Dat hat

2) Dat solder

3) Dem fumes

4) Dem glasses

5) Dat hi-tech grafiks kard

[Bleedingyamato]

3 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

I think you didn't read his post correctly;

 

When you buy used or pre-builds, you don't have the choice of what's already installed. Same with PCs you're tasked to fix.

Pretty sure I read it fine.  He was talking about having trouble uninstalling Norton.  Well my guess he wasn't doing it the correct way using the removal tool.  Why else would have so much trouble uninstalling Norton?

[Bleedingyamato]

2 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

That was actually my initial post about sharing this article; that it was completely ridiculous and apparently written by idiots.

 

Also they mention that Norton has lots of flaws that actually makes a PC less secure, that's why I mentioned that I knew this when studying IT 15 years ago.

 

And I totally agree, having an anti-virus software isn't an excuse to be careless!

 

 

Sorry, I don't get the 2-way firewall thing, Windows is a 2 way firewall, same about the majority of firewalls out there, seems Symantec is doing their usual marketing BS with this one.

 

BTW, there are no universal "one software solution" and there is no real best anti-virus, I can't tell you about what to choose because you're the one that know what features you need or not.

 

A good (but old) guide to help is one made by BleepingComputers (maybe there's such a guide here on LTT, I don't know);

 

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/407147/answers-to-common-security-questions-best-practices/

 

 

That's how good or even the "run of the mill" mediocre anti-virus works, they aren't supposed to wait for you to be infected to give you a warning.

 

 

All I can tell you is what I'm using personally;

 

Bitdefender (free)

Spybot (for the host file immunization, I turn off the rest)

Malwarebytes (for a monthly check)

My router's firewall (I always turn off Windows firewall)

 

... and I never got a virus, in decades, but then I don't torrent games and programs, I don't click weird links, and I have an agressive email filtering, all logical things if you ask me but apparently it's not the case for everyone! lol

The Norton firewall is supposed affect malware trying to get into your computer but also to prevent anything that somehow might get on your computer or already be on it from sending anything from your computer to somewhere else like malware intended to fish for financial info I guess would be an example of outgoing malware traffic.

 

I wasn't sure if the W10 firewall is one or two way but I just found this which says it's only one way: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-security/is-windows-10-firewall-a-one-way-or-two-way/67978a05-12dd-40b5-bcbc-dee3dcfe63b6?auth=1

 

So that would seem to indicate that the W10 firewall isn't as good as norton's since Norton firewall protects against both incoming and outgoing traffic.  Though I assume there are other stand alone firewalls out there somewhere that are also two way but without looking idk.  My point is a two way firewall is almost certainly not unique to Norton so I could likely find a new two way firewall if I ever stop using Norton.   

 

I'll take a look at that guide thank you.  I use Norton because it's what I've always used and for years now it's worked fine and saved me from getting malware a few times but if there's better things out there I'm certainly open to considering them.  I might still make a topic about it to get some opinions and suggestions and see what people like best and go from there.  

 

I definitely want to check out that Malwarebytes at least for now.

 

Spybot is useless for actually finding anything.  Years ago (2006 or 2007) not long after I got first laptop that was entirely for my use I got a bunch of crap on my computer I think from saving pictures from Google.  Read: NOT PORN I'm 100% serious it wasn't.  I scanned with with some free antispyware I forget the name, Spybot, even Norton Antivirus (this was before the Internet Security version was available I believe) and they all found nothing.  I ended up finding some random antispyware program called Xoftspy I think it is and somehow it found a LOT of various malware and was able to remove it.  I almost didn't bother with it because I didn't know if I could trust this program I'd never heard of before but it worked.

 

 What does that host file thing do for Spybot?

 

Why not use the router firewall and Windows?  Or would they conflict with each other?

 

 

[Bleedingyamato]

2 hours ago, maulemall said:

yes if you notice I said 2001 and even later their removal tool didn't remove all of their bloatware.

Since I never even suggested that I had any trouble I'm not sure where you are conjuring that from.

I understand that some Techies think that this is all rocket science but some of us actually work on rockets and play with computers.

Sorry.  You'd said you had hell uninstalling Norton I thought?  My mistake.

[WkdPaul]

7 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

The Norton firewall is supposed affect malware trying to get into your computer but also to prevent anything that somehow might get on your computer or already be on it from sending anything from your computer to somewhere else like malware intended to fish for financial info I guess would be an example of outgoing malware traffic.

 

I wasn't sure if the W10 firewall is one or two way but I just found this which says it's only one way: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-security/is-windows-10-firewall-a-one-way-or-two-way/67978a05-12dd-40b5-bcbc-dee3dcfe63b6?auth=1

 

So that would seem to indicate that the W10 firewall isn't as good as norton's since Norton firewall protects against both incoming and outgoing traffic.  Though I assume there are other stand alone firewalls out there somewhere that are also two way but without looking idk.  My point is a two way firewall is almost certainly not unique to Norton so I could likely find a new two way firewall if I ever stop using Norton.

That makes no sense, I can't believe a MS engineer would answer that!!! A 2-way firewall means it block outgoing and incomming connections, Windows firewall does that since the first time it was introduced:

 

 

 

By default, Windows firewall block applications from outbound connections;

 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Spybot is useless for actually finding anything.  Years ago (2006 or 2007) not long after I got first laptop that was entirely for my use I got a bunch of crap on my computer I think from saving pictures from Google.  Read: NOT PORN I'm 100% serious it wasn't.  I scanned with with some free antispyware I forget the name, Spybot, even Norton Antivirus (this was before the Internet Security version was available I believe) and they all found nothing.  I ended up finding some random antispyware program called Xoftspy I think it is and somehow it found a LOT of various malware and was able to remove it.  I almost didn't bother with it because I didn't know if I could trust this program I'd never heard of before but it worked.

 

 What does that host file thing do for Spybot?

I know Spybot is useless, that's why I turn everything off and only use it for the host file.

 

The host file is used to block "malicious" internet access, it tell the OS "if you're looking for blabla.com then look here: " and a dead end IP is supplied (usually you would direct it to itself: 127.0.0.1).

 

So known dangerous or malicious IP can't be accessed (it's often used to block ads but you can redirect anything).

 

Here is an article from lifehacker (mostly for blocking intrusive ads);

http://lifehacker.com/5817447/how-to-block-unwanted-ads-in-all-applications-and-speed-up-web-browsing-with-the-hosts-file

 

 

7 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Why not use the router firewall and Windows?  Or would they conflict with each other?

No they would not interfere, I only use the router's firewall because it's a centralized solution, that means I only have to take care of one firewall (I have a total of 7 PCs and devices at home), I would only use Windows firewall if I had a local domain. So if you only have 1 or 2 PCs, using Windows firewall is perfectly fine.

 

 

In the end it's the user's choice and it's really about what each of us prefers, personally I work the way I do because it's what I'm used to do from my work experience. Though at work we are using paying solutions I don't have the budget for

 

[maulemall]

8 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Sorry.  You'd said you had hell uninstalling Norton I thought?  My mistake.

I probably didn't express myself well. I get in a hurry and don't proof what I type.

 

 

[I need a better name]

who needs experiences with non-techies when we got experiences with anti-virus, amirite?

[SageOfSpice]

My mother...

 

She always buys these expensive laptops, and they work great... for a week.

 

"Hey, can you take a look at my computer? It's been really slow lately for some reason."

 

Laptop fan blaring at full steam, sounds like a jet engine. Open up screen, desktop completely and I mean COMPLETELY filled to the brim with shortcuts and documents. Open up task manager, 400 active processes. Open up browser to download tool, every toolbar known to man is taking up 3/4 of the browser window.

 

Spend 5 hours optimizing it and cleaning it both physically and emotionally. "Hey, where is program X?" "It was a virus." "Oh".

 

Yeah, no thank you, just accusations about getting rid of her shit.

 

It pisses me off, lol. "Hey is this processor good? What about this GPU?"

 

What does it even matter? Lol. You don't know what any of it does anyways, and you never use anything other than the internet!

[comicsansms]

15 minutes ago, SageOfSpice said:

My mother...

 

She always buys these expensive laptops, and they work great... for a week.

 

"Hey, can you take a look at my computer? It's been really slow lately for some reason."

 

Laptop fan blaring at full steam, sounds like a jet engine. Open up screen, desktop completely and I mean COMPLETELY filled to the brim with shortcuts and documents. Open up task manager, 400 active processes. Open up browser to download tool, every toolbar known to man is taking up 3/4 of the browser window.

 

Spend 5 hours optimizing it and cleaning it both physically and emotionally. "Hey, where is program X?" "It was a virus." "Oh".

 

Yeah, no thank you, just accusations about getting rid of her shit.

 

It pisses me off, lol. "Hey is this processor good? What about this GPU?"

 

What does it even matter? Lol. You don't know what any of it does anyways, and you never use anything other than the internet!

Easy fix, install Adblock, make her user a standard user, make the computer scan for viruses at 10.30PM and set the computer to Automatically shut down at 12AM using task scheduler. 

[NinjaJc01]

On 7/9/2016 at 4:46 AM, Donut417 said:

It slows your machine down. Every time I used Norton or Macfee for that matter we have had the same issue. I use AVAST currently and it works good. Light weight. 

Kasperksy is horrible, it didn't even ask me where I wanted to install it. It nicked 20GB of space on my SSD.

[DocSwag]

Imo you don't really need antivirus or anything like that as long as you aren't some big target with a lot of info and you use logic. It's pretty hard to get any sort of virus or anything if both of those things are true. The only time I've ever gotten malware was when I was stupid and was trying to get a clash of clans hack (please don't judge) and I ended up getting a piece of adware. That time though I wasn't using logic so yeah.

 

And that reminds me..... Story time!

 

So about that adware incident.... So basically as you now know I was attempting to get a clash of clans hack (silly me, hacks aren't for kids!). I ended up getting a very annoying piece of adware on my Mac laptop (PLEASE DON'T JUDGE). So I downloaded bit defender, and it found a bunch of malware. I deleted all of the malware, and whaddaya know, on the next reboot the computer said one of my boot files was missing.... Ouch. I ended up taking it to the Apple Store where the guy ended up just having to reinstall OS X. Luckily I didn't have anything important on there though.

 

Now that I know more about computers though he could've just made a new partition on my hard drive and installed OS X on the new partition so I wouldn't have lost any of my data, and could've just copied it over! Not sure why he didn't do that. Looks like Genius Bar isn't so genius after all!

[BingoFishy]

34 minutes ago, NinjaJc01 said:

Kasperksy is horrible, it didn't even ask me where I wanted to install it. It nicked 20GB of space on my SSD.

WebRoot is great, it takes up less than a megabyte of disk space.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470312,00.asp

 

I sound like an advertisement, don't I?

[NinjaJc01]

2 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

WebRoot is great, it takes up less than a megabyte of disk space.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470312,00.asp

 

I sound like an advertisement, don't I?

My dad bought 5 licences of Kaspersky, so yeah...

[BingoFishy]

1 minute ago, NinjaJc01 said:

My dad bought 5 licences of Kaspersky, so yeah...

WebRoot's cheap too! They're commonly on sale on Newegg and I got 3 licenses for like $9.

[NinjaJc01]

2 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

WebRoot's cheap too! They're commonly on sale on Newegg and I got 3 licenses for like $9.

My dad wouldn't buy it, we still have like a year of Kaspersky, and also, I'm in the UK.

[13CA350]

My "Business and Technology" teacher has told my class to "use all the same passwords so it's easy to remember" more than a few times. I think she only says that because some kids in my class can never remember what their password was and always slow everyone down.

[NinjaJc01]

3 minutes ago, 13CA350 said:

My "Business and Technology" teacher has told my class to "use all the same passwords so it's easy to remember" more than a few times. I think she only says that because some kids in my class can never remember what their password was and always slow everyone down.

The same password as each other, or the same password for everything?

[13CA350]

The same password for every account, but I'm sure she would think telling everyone your passwords was a good idea too.

 

Like, if my password was 123123 she'd say to use 123123 for everything.

[WkdPaul]

1 hour ago, NinjaJc01 said:

Kasperksy is horrible, it didn't even ask me where I wanted to install it. It nicked 20GB of space on my SSD.

20GB is HUGE for a security suite, also I think you can choose the installation path if you run the command line installer (but honestly, you shouldn't have to).

[NinjaJc01]

2 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

20GB is HUGE for a security suite, also I think you can choose the installation path if you run the command line installer (but honestly, you shouldn't have to).

It might have been 10GB, but yeah...

[WkdPaul]

2 minutes ago, NinjaJc01 said:

It might have been 10GB, but yeah...

Even 10GB is already too much IMO. As I said a few pages back, I use different softwares for my security needs and I'm pretty sure they don't even add up to 1GB.

 

Best thing IMO is a combination of applications, often free. Sadly when your parents are in charge and they don't know, you get stuck in a dead-end!

[soldier_ph]

16 hours ago, Clanscorpia said:

Look at this. Its legit cringe

This is not how Hardware Works !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NinjaJc01]

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Even 10GB is already too much IMO. As I said a few pages back, I use different softwares for my security needs and I'm pretty sure they don't even add up to 1GB.

 

Best thing IMO is a combination of applications, often free. Sadly when your parents are in charge and they don't know, you get stuck in a dead-end!

Yep, my dad hates "wasting" money, but I think I'll buy myself Hitman Pro and use Malwarebytes next time.

[WkdPaul]

1 minute ago, NinjaJc01 said:

Yep, my dad hates "wasting" money, but I think I'll buy myself Hitman Pro and use Malwarebytes next time.

Just remembered, you can use symlinks to move Kaspersky. I used that a few years ago when my OS SSD was 60GB.

 

A good article from how-to-geek;

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/