Yayyyy Sheepco! Welcome to funtown! Now keep your firewall and antivirus programs updated and have a blast!

So, I have my firewalls off (or at least some of them, I dunno how that works) so I don't have to look at all the ads on GW (and my 'puter reminds me of this daily). I do have bitdefender antivirus. I am concerned that now I should do more. I have also heard there are free antivirus, spyware, etc. available. Others, especially those SELLING products, say you get what you pay for. This may be true, it so often is. Am I a big target for a virus now? When I was looking for antivirus stuff I found a site that rated programs based on effectiveness, cost, ease of use, etc. Like consumer report.

But there are so many! I'm one of the computer illiterate - I know slightly less than enough to be dangerous :) Suggestions? (Hope I didn't just open Pandora's box)

Thank you!

Meanwhile, I have cruised the forum in 1/4 of the time it would normally have taken me. This hi-speed won't even give me time to refill my wine glass! But I'll probably have more time to do the dishes AND cuddle the dogs :) S

Congrats, Sarah!! I'm so envious! If it were available here, I'd be all over it.

I have my firewall turned off, but I have dial-up. And I do other things to protect myself, but I think you should have the firewall on and pop-up blocker on. Sometimes, the firewall interferes with what you can view online, so others will help you more with that.

Norton and McAfee are 2 of the best antivirus programs. You definitely get what you pay for. :) And you have to keep them updated so they are able to fight the newest critters out there. Once you get them installed, they're fairly easy to manage, since they know everyone needs virus protection, not just computer geeks. :D

Brenda

With the faster speed come new threats such as hackers "pinging" open ports on your 'puter trying to find ways to breach it. So you need to arm yourself with a good firewall program. ZoneAlarm and Black Ice are very popular. I use the free version of ZoneAlarm and like it a lot. I have no personal experience with Black Ice or any other firewalls. The only negative thing I have heard/read about ZoneAlarm is that it is not easy to uninstall it and doing so may cause some serious issues with your 'puter. I haven't had this problem because I've never needed nor tried to uninstall it.

Oh I am so envious .... if I was just a few fricking miles closer to town. It's sooooo close, and yet sooooo far away!

LOL Me, too, Jean!

One thing that's always puzzled me about DSL is how many folks leave the line "open" at all times, even when they're not surfing (which also ups the odds of hacker activity). If I'm ever lucky enough to have it, I'd make sure to switch it off whenever I'm not using it. I'm obviously not real sure of the technical terminology here. :D I also agree with Fi guy that a firewall is MUY importante if you have DSL.

Brenda

Congratulations on getting out of the computer stone age. I have the free version of Zone Alarm and some virus checkers and most of the time they do a good job. The ads that do get through I just ignore. I think I have to have a little talk with a new member of my garden group though. We had trouble getting through to her e-mail or telephone. She said she had so much trouble with spammers and ads she had to go through a lot of riggamarole to admit anyone new. I got the first e-mail from her the other day and wham! All sorts of junk came up to hit me in the face. It was one of those cute little feel cozy, friendly please forward things and there must have been a hundred names and e-addresses on there. Zone alarm has been having hissies since then. I haven't had so many warnings pop up since I first signed on to the internet. I hate explaining things like this to anyone. They get this blank, deer in the headlights look. Anyone know a good site that explains this stuff in english rather than jargon? I think it was last year someone posted about how to eliminate the e-addresses and keep the message but I never remember details.
BTW, we had DSL for a while but DH got annoyed and we are now on cable and they all say to keep the computer on but in actual practice if you read the contract closely it says that they can kick you off after you have used it for a couple of hours. I don't know how many times I got bumped before I found that out. Sandy

Sandy, not exactly sure if I understand the exact nature of your problem (he says with a distinct deer in the headlights look!). Just checked ZoneAlarm's website and it appears that they have a users' forum. I think that MIGHT be your best bet to get an explanation in almost plain English! Good luck.

I'm not sure how an email could do that, either, unless something was downloaded onto your computer in the process of viewing (and downloading) the feel-good images. Ack, I hate those things!

That's why I never use Outlook Express or anything similar, because I have so little control over my address book and email issues in general. In Yahoo mail, I have all images blocked from senders, and if I get one I really want to see (and if I really trust the sender), then I can view them on a case-by-case basis.

Getting a little side-tracked here, Sarah, sorry. LOL

Brenda

Thanks, Semper and Brenda. My firewall threw out all sorts of new updates and AVG and the other programs I have seem to have gotten rid of what ever bad stuff got through so I am stuck with the problem of telling her why I won't be accepting any e-mail from her until she stops sending those cutesy feel-good bombs(only 32 got through)and cleans up her drive. No wonder she was complaining about problems. I don't want to offend her and I am truly lousy at explainations. If it wasn't taking a chance, I would keep my mouth shut and just clean up after her. DH had a fit when I said that. Sandy

Wait, wait, I'm lost! I turned my Windows firewalls back on, (so far the GW ads haven't come up again), and I have Bitdefender (which rated better then Norton, but not as good as McAfee on this particular site), that I paid ~$49.95 for (1 year). And I use Outlook Express. My computer is turned off when I'm not using it, but don't know if that's good enough.

What's AVG?

I searched free Zone Alarm, but either they wanted $29.95, or I got side-tracked to a "free" site that wanted alot of personel info. Is it normal to have to give your e-mail address 1st thing to Zone Alarm before getting any info? (or any of those free virus/spam/etc downloads?)

My Bitdefender subscription is coming due in March so if someone can point me in a better direction I'd appreciate it.

Thanks, I'm absorbing all this info!! Sarah

Sarah, if the site you visited for anti-virus info was PC World, then you picked the best site out there. 35 Things Every PC User Should Know is packed with really good info. There's a drop-down list at the bottom of the article with links which will take you to certain things that may interest you more than others, such as Surf Anonymously and PC Protection: Tighten PC Security.

I also found an article there called Unsafe at High Speed: Security on Your Broadband Connection.

Oh, and AVG is a free anti-virus program. :)

Brenda

I was browsing the links Brenda listed and discovered AVG is putting out a new version(?) labeled 7.5 to replace 7.1. Checked what was on my computer and discovered it had already been downloaded on Valentine's day. That is a nice gift! I thought at the time it was taking longer than usual to run updates.
I guess I really ought to start reading PCWorld etc. again. I stopped reading after I quit selling computers. Burnout?? After so long it will seem that I'm a novice again. Aughhh! Totally new jargon. When I started out, a small business could run on 8K, a large business on 64K and only really large businesses needed a modem. And they were all dialup.
With the AVG, Zone Alarm, Spybot and CCleaner it seems to be fairly well covered. We will have to wait to see how good the new AVG is and I guess the others will be putting out updates because of Vista. Does anyone have any recommendations about anything else I should put on here? Sandy

Thanks for the links Brenda, I'm going to look them over tomorrow when I have more time. I appreciate all the info everybody.

Sarah

HOT DIGGIDY DOG!!!! I just received notification that DSL is now available to me!!! Good-bye to Mr.Hughes and your-slow-connection-out-of-luck-in-bad-weather-been-fapped-too-many-times-overpriced satellite!!!

The only problem is that I'm not sure if we are on a yearly contract with the satellite since the contract is through my employer. But I'll be counting the days!

Nothing fast is available here. Although I have to admit, if a faster computer means I have to deal with closer subdivisions......then I'll put up with sssssllllllllloooooowwwwwwww. You wouldn't believe how slow ours is. Plus, it drastically got slower about 2 weeks ago and hubby says its because alot of the sites now have so many pictures.
I think Microsoft was downloading/uploading some updates to our computer the other day, and it took almost 24 hours!!!
We still have that hand crank thing on the side of our computer. We have to rev it up about every half hour. ;) hahahahaha
Have fun Sarah! I'm green with envy!
(At least I can get a load of wash done, while waiting for the page to change)hahaha

I have cable and they just upgraded to 6mb download and 376 upload. You can test your computer speed on Speakeasy.net

I recently switched to Spy Sweeper and Trend Micro Antivirus and just the Firewall that came with XP. I turned off the SID broadcast since I am wireless, so people using a wireless computer near my router can't even see my signal to select it. I also put in our computer IPs so only ours are recognized and allowed in through (or out) of the modem.

My email is Outlook.

I used to use Norton Antivirus which I liked but Trend Micro works well. I don't like McAfee at all.

I don't give out my regular email but other than about 15 people. I use Yahoo mail for everything else.

Other freebies are Spybot Search and Destroy and AdAware by Lava Soft.

I have a Verizon towwer about a mile as the crow flies but we still don't have it, but my cable modem is much faster so I would not get DSL even it does come now. DLS is cheaper, but it would seem like dial up to me now. Getting rid of dial up is like letting a kid go crazy in a candy shop.

I turn my computer off when not using it, every time. I also pull out the electric plug during electrical storms. The battery works for about 3 hours. I no longer use a desktop PC, replaced all of those with laptops and use one router for the computers and we share one wireless printer. No wires is great.

Jean - I have satellite TV and you are right - heavy clouds and hard rain and it loses the signal. I would hate to have the computers go out too! I sometimes watch missed episodes of various CBS shows on my computer which is nice to be able to do with faster speeds.

I'll tell you I also hate all those little cutsey things some used to send to me, or hitting reply all when they don't even know the folks in your email, or those smiley thingys, or anthing AOL! Earthlink emails perturb me too - with having to tell someone to add to their safe list. Geez - let people pick their own list if they want to do that. Rules are not hard to do.

You can set up a worm catcher on your email. Make a 'fake' email address !10001! that sits at the top of your address book, with no @XXX behind it (and you can do a 'z' one at the bottom as well) that does not send to any 'real' email if a email worm gets in. It won't stop the worm, but it won't send to everyone in your email address book either, because the top and bottom email address is not real and you get a window that tells you the email can't go out.

CT