PC Masters in Meredith closes

[trfour]

[QUOTE=brk-lnt;121651]It is not your ISP's job to protect you from yourself, especially if you choose to go online with a security deficient machine.

Even when I used PC's, my "Internet security" was a $100 router and common sense. I never had a need for virus and ad-ware scanners and all sorts of other funky software to "clean" my computer. [Quote];


If you're set-up works for you, that is great, brk-lnt!

I read an article a while back by an Internet security expert, and he said " that until ISP's get involved in monitoring and filtering out the hacks, that they would be getting much worse in the coming year.
I looked for the above article, couldn't find it, will keep looking and post it out here when I do.

However, I did find this related article, and Comcast is getting involved. So they must be aware of the above as well.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10...ag=mncol;title


Regards



Terry
________________________________

[BroadHopper]

If Peter is not available. Call me. I do a pretty good job of getting microsoft OS back to original and even faster. Been doing this since viruses and malacious software became a problem. Worked for one of the Fortune 100 company for over 30 years. If you are stuck give me a buzz at 603.490.3336.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by trfour

I read an article a while back by an Internet security expert, and he said " that until ISP's get involved in monitoring and filtering out the hacks, that they would be getting much worse in the coming year.

He's talking about something different (if he really is an "expert"). There are things an ISP can do with their own routers to block or drop certain incoming connections from networks that are known to host a lot of spamming or rouge activity. These tend to be large blocks of IP addresses in parts of Russia, China, Pakistan and so on. This has nothing to do with your PC directly, other than if they block the incoming connections then of course the data does not ever get to your PC.

Comcast and several other consumer ISP's offer McAfee (or other mediocre) virus scanning tools for free. This is certainly OK, but you can already start to see the slippery slope it creates. When people start to think that someone else can or should protect them and handle their security, it tends to make them even less responsible and sufficient in terms of participating on the Internet. As we see new things happening online, like streaming video services (Hulu and so on) we also see some ISP's start to feel threatened by these services. Rather than adjust their price or content to compete, they "compete" by impeding YOUR access to competitive content.

If you allow a precedent to be set that the ISP should take full responsibility for your online security and access it WILL lead to nothing but higher prices and lower quality service over time.

[EricP]

Bottom line is to know what you're doing with your pc. Clicking randomly on things and opening attachments blindly are the most common methods of getting infected.
As brk-int states, get a dlink/netgear/linksys/etc router in between you and the rest of the world and that will do more than any of those security programs will ever do. Also, know what attachments you are opening and where they came from, if there's any questions then check with the person who sent it before opening it, I have done that many times.
Those firewall/security programs are a waste of money IMHO, never used them, don't need them, never had a problem. I even use Internet Explorer all the time and just pay attention to what I am doing.
I love those so called experts, creating all that fear I think they are supported by the companies that develop the software they are always raving about.
Always use virus software, just not the full package they scare you into buying.

[BroadHopper]

from Microsoft, Malacious Software tool from Microsoft, turn on automatic update and you should do fine. All from microsoft.com. Don't have to buy anything more. Once a week I will run the disk cleaner then do a full scan from Security Essentials.

Once a month, I would do a scan disk for disk failure. Than do a disk defragmentation. Go to Windows update website and check for hardware device updates. The automatic updates don't update devices.

I only run Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot only as needed.

Had several PCs humming for years without problems.