Ic3b3rg's Tips, Tweaks, and Suggestions (Antispyware included)

Message Edited by TSR-Joel on 08-16-2005 11:44 PM

Ic3b3rg

Added to the Links to GOOD troubleshooting and performance enhancing threads!. Thanks for the excellent write up.

Not a problem at all. I was glad i ran into that one thread so it gave me an idea to help out. If i come across anything else, or think of something else in my half sleepy state, ill be sure to add it here.

Ic3b3rg,

Thanks!

Just rememberd. Another great tool i personaly use from time to time is Netmon. This program shows you all the connections that are made on your computer via the internet. It shows TCP and UDP as well. It allows you to close connections just by right clicking and selecting from a drop down list. Perfect for those rare occastions something has slipped past your secruity and is connected to you without you knowing it.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/netmon.html

Might as well add my little bit of gold into this area, since we are
talking a little bit about PC security allow an on the clock Network
Administrator (I work for a local place here in IL) to add some good
programs to the mix.  The following are some very helpful free
tools, I have taken the liberty of linking directly to each programs
download site, if you would prefer to peruse the actual programs
information, let me know and I can point you to the direction of their
website.



Spybot S&D.



An Excellent spyware removal and protection program, while it doesn't
yet offer active real-time protection, it does do a comprehensive scan,
and will pick up some pretty nasty junk, it also has an extremely
helpful "Advanced" mode, if anybody actually downloads this and uses it
and would like help or tips on using some of the features in the
advanced mode, let me know.



Ad-aware.



The classic, also recomended by grc.com (my shields are up, how bout
you hmmm?) is another excellent spyware removal tool, as we all know,
having just one spyware program won't cut it, so I use the above two,
very very handy stuff it is.  I usually go with the full system
scan option in Ad-aware as the smart scan can sometimes bug with some
legit programs.



CW Shredder.



This is an excellent tool for removing that pesky and privacy invading CoolWeb searchbar we all know and hate so much.



Hi-Jack This!



This handy little tool will run a diagnostic of your internet settings
and certain internet related registry keys to determine whether or not
you may have browser hi-jackers in your midst, the readout Hi-Jack
This! gives out can be a little difficult to understand at times, and
so I do not recomend messing with any of the files it brings up until
you talk to someone who knows how to read the list, or until you figure
it out yourself, it isn't to bad.



I am also fluent in more than a couple different versions of Symantec
Anti-virus both private and corporate editions, so if you have
questions concerning scan settings or things of that nature, I suppose
I could offer my assistance in that area as well.

As Ex pointed out Spybot S&D is a great spy/ad ware scanner just like Ad-aware. In the link i provided there is a section:

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-features.htm#rec

which lists some of those very programs, and further down gives some other good programs to use in IE and further protect your system.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html

And yes my shields are up and running Stealthed

Edit: And of course the most obvious and most imporant thing to remember is to keep your OS updated at all times. For windows go to Start> and at the top of the drop up menu should have an icon link to windows update.

Also if your using windows SP2 update and you have a free firewall already running you can turn off windows poor excuse for a firewall at Start>Settings>Control Panel>Security Center

Message Edited by Ic3b3rg on 08-17-2005 04:38 PM

I also forgot to post to mozilla, for all you security junkies out
there Mozilla's Firefox browser is a lot safer and moire secure than IE
is, however, there are still websites that don't support it, so you
have to be a tad careful of how you use it I'm afraid.  I use both
Firefox and IE in conjunction, when I hit a site that doesn't work in
FF I use IE, and so on and so forth.  One thing to note about
Firefox is that it is very customizable compared to IE, and also that
it will not properly display certain websites that are built with
pop-up style menu's.



Heres the link.

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Ic3b3rg wrote:

Note: these are all free sites and i used them regularly.

Http://www.pcpitstop.com

Http://www.grc.com

These first two sites are very good, the first does a health check on your computer and tells you whats wrong. The second is a secruity related site that helps dectect any vuneralbilities in your systems secruity. It also has xp fixs for Messanger, Dcom service, and a Leak test for your firewall.

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm

This site is a good comparision of almost every spy ware scanner thats out there on the web, it has links for what they recommend as what you should get if your a newbie, or more detailed items if your a tech savvy.

http://www.zonelabs.com

For a free Firewall program i would suggest (as does GRC) zonelabs zone alarm firewall.

http://www.grisoft.com

This program known as AVG is a pretty good Anti Virus scanner. It is free to use and doesnt hog up your resources like Norton does.

Also dont forget to do maintance on your computers HD once a week/month depending how how much you use the internet. Disk cleanup/defrag can be found in Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools. Error checking can be located by going to My Computer and right clicking your C: (harddrive by default) and going to tools.

Message Edited by TSR-Joel on 08-16-2005 11:44 PM

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A better link would be GetFirefox.com they both go to the mozilla site but the getfirefox.com takes you right to the Firefox product page ...ya

TheEx,

Good suggestions there as well. Thanks!