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January 28, 2003 at 12:35 pm #7486netsavvyMember
ooops sorry frendz i posted it in wrong forum earlier.[holding ears and saying soweeeee ]:p…so before anyone could kick mah ass ..:(..i deleted it from there and am posting it here now:cool:
a guy i know said following things to me…..can anyone tell me how much is bs:) here …i will be greatful:)
“Firewalls are of no use . You can get ip of any user whos talkin
to u in pms thru yahoo messenger nm if the user has a firewall or no.
No hacker can b stopped by a firewall…..all trojans have this
capability to kill firewalls in a sec. & if u get a trojan which
kills ur firewall then ur firewall wont allow u to access the
net …u cant even uninstall it cos it will keep on saying true
vector is running ( noone knows wht the hell it is) so firewalls can
end up in putting u in trouble”
netsavvy:oJanuary 28, 2003 at 4:07 pm #64756Jeff HesterKeymasterHe was exaggerating. Firewalls are NOT of “no use.” Firewalls will watch and block incoming requests on specific ports that if left wide open (i.e. no firewall) could allow someone to access your computer. Once again, having a firewall is like locking the front door to your house. Consider it the first line of defense.
However, he is correct in stating that firewalls will not generally protect you against a trojan. For that you need a good anti-virus program with up-to-date virus definitions. And even that isn’t a 100% guarantee of safety, as new ones come along all the time. Trojans are little malicious programs that are delivered to you as something innocuous, usually via an email attachment, but increasingly via IM. If you run the application, then it does it’s bad stuff (whatever it was designed to do). If you don’t run the application, you’re usually safe.
The best advice is to not accept attachments from strangers, either via email or instant messages, and the ones that you do accept, scan with a virus scanner before opening.
Even if the attachment doesn’t look like a program, it could be disguised as an image. Never accept a file with a .SCR extension, for example… almost always a virus or trojan.
January 29, 2003 at 5:20 am #64757netsavvyMemberHI frendz,
Thanks a lot Jeff for clearing up the matter for me cause i always thought firewalls can protect against trojan as they ask u before sending any info out….one more things that i been thinking about is how to make my pc run faster ?are these free software which boast of makin u r pc run faster or fasten u r connection speed really work?? i have asked this to friends and got two very diff replies.1.”its not a case that free software is bad, in fact my pc is loaded with it yet it runs fast 20 seconds from switching it on to being online, the thing is not to feed it bad free stuff like sum free screensaver . a lot of the free crap in pc is actaully there to make it run faster and more efficient,if it wasnt for these the pc wud be running about as fast as wen i used to be able to switch it on and make a cup of tea before it loaded up “
2.”Actually these softwares dont help much …..Infact such softwares
can make ur pc run slow…..Antivirus is of no use at all….i never ever had an antivirus in my pc ….. Most of the trojans are not detected even by uptodate antivirus ( 90% ppl dont update their antivirus ).Programs like tweak master do help…they can run ur pc faster but if u dont know how to set it u can end up in making ur pc much
slower..so my advice will be to avoid any free software..cause most of free stuff is junk.
The best way to keep ur pc smooth is avoid crap ….Increasing ur ram helps if u ever think abt upgrading ur pc dont waste ur money on a cpu get a good hard disk & get 512mb ram (anything above 512mb is of no use). Run scandisk & disk
defragmenter once a week “
So what do u guys think???July 25, 2003 at 4:43 am #64755Jeff HesterKeymasterI also have been thinking about ways to make my pc run faster. I have an old Athlon K6 machine running at 400MHz with only 192MB of RAM.
I use Tweak UI and try not to have too many things running in the background at the same time, and I try to limit what’s going to run at startup, and that seems to help.
It was suggested to me that I should not let Windows manage my virtual memory settings, and since I’ved changed that, this old machine seems to be running a bit faster. This is how you do it:
On the System icon in Control Panel, click on Performance, then Virtual Memory. Click the button that says Let me specify my own virtual memory settings. Then choose a number that’s 3 or 4 times the amount of RAM you have. Mine is set to 768, which is 4 times the amount of RAM I have.
I think having a firewall and an antivirus program is very important, but you have to keep them updated and configured correctly. I used Norton Antivirus and get virus definition updates every week. I also use the basic free version of ZoneAlarm firewall.
I’ve tested this machine on ShieldsUp and some other online security testing websites, and they all say I’m pretty secure. The only thing that I think I need now is a proxy server to hide my IP address.
Probably this fall I’ll be getting a new machine that’s alot faster and that has alot more RAM and a decent video card.
If I were to upgrade this one, I would definitely go to 512 RAM and replace the video card, but to upgrade the processor I’d probably have to get a whole new motherboard, so I’m thinking it would be better to just get a whole new machine.
July 25, 2003 at 6:20 am #64758.ParticipantFirst of all how fast is your computer and what are the specifics of it? What operating system do you use. The guy in question from your first post is full of bull but I like duck – so what do I have to say to all this?
First of all bookmark this site to your favorites
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php
I am still learning on ways to secure myself and many security professionals consider the best defense to be a layered approach. Using a firewall and antivirus scanner are considered security must haves 101. Register for the above forum and post something about how fast your computer is and what operating system you use to let the post what might be best for your system.If you do not have a firewall or anti-virus get one ASAP!
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