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The Best Security Suites (2013/2014)

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tomos:
The best security suites is the one that controls even the Kernel.
I am referring to Windows XP. I was told that Windows XP will be unprotected against Kernel attacks after April, I mean after its end of support.
Is there any program that controls even the Kernel?-Giampy (February 21, 2014, 03:55 AM)
--- End quote ---

See this thread Continuing with XP - in particular app's post:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=37176.msg348626#msg348626

Innuendo:
The best security suites is the one that controls even the Kernel.
I am referring to Windows XP. I was told that Windows XP will be unprotected against Kernel attacks after April, I mean after its end of support.
Is there any program that controls even the Kernel?-Giampy (February 21, 2014, 03:55 AM)
--- End quote ---

Windows XP was first released in 2001. Why stay with a 12-year old OS? When XP just came out if someone asked you advice on how to stay with Windows 95, what would you tell them? And there was only a 6 year span between those OSes!

Modernize, please. You don't have to go whole hog and upgrade to Windows 8.x, but at least move to Windows 7. If you have half-way decent specs in your PC with a decent graphics card you'll enjoy better performance than you did with XP. Once Microsoft officially drops support, you're going to start seeing your favorite programs dropping support as well & some will release new versions that won't even be able to install on XP any longer.

But to stay on the topic of this thread, which is security, even with the latest patches Windows XP is not as secure as the OSes that have come after it.

Shades:
There is an application called Zolt. Run XP with this application and see how it works out for you.

What it does is simple, it runs a service and adds an icon in the tray for easy enabling/disabling. As long as it is disabled, your computer will work normally. However, when enabled no-one is allowed to write to (any of) your hard disk(s) anymore. In essence, it turns a hard disk into a CD-ROM. The latest version of it that I could still find, was back in 2002(!) and it is still in my archive, so if you really want it I could PM it to you. For some reason, attaching it to this post seems impossible.

Try this software and be amazed about the type of sites you can visit without any chance of infection. At the time I tried it, I just had my 5 Mbit connection and a fresh XP installation. In those days it was bad in the Netherlands, the first time you would go on the net and immediately let your ant-virus software update itself, you would already infected by a(t least one) virus before that update was finished.

But with this software enabled not one virus was able to infect my system. To me this software looks like it disables write access at the Windows kernel level. I do remember though that 3 to 6 months after I downloaded this, I wanted to see if there were updates. The website of the creator just stated that he received a note from Microsoft, to stop development and distribution of the software immediately. Even (freeware) download sites didn't have links anymore.

This software comes with costs, though. Depending on how much software is installed in your XP installation that requires write access, your screen will be filled with Windows message boxes mentioning that: 'Application <insert name here> couldn't write to <insert folder here>.' in the best case scenario to application failures in the worst.

So only consider using this if you have no other option left than to keep running XP after the expiration date and don't mind clicking away Windows messages during the time this software is activated.

Or if you have a VM or clunker with XP you don't mind sacrificing, you might want to try it...or find out what makes it tick...or whatever.

Best see this as a last resort. The only serious consideration you should have in your mind is how to be able to upgrade to either a newer version of Windows or Linux. Please, give XP it's hard-earned and well-deserved rest.

dr_andus:
But I also knew each of those machines was properly set-up and updated -  and was "squeaky clean" system-wise before I installed BitDefender so somebody else's mileage could well vary.
 8)
-40hz (February 13, 2014, 02:46 PM)
--- End quote ---

A couple of months ago I stopped using AVG 2014 because it just stopped working properly (it just would not carry out some commands, such as scan individual files from the context menu) and I was also miffed about AVG for some other reasons.

I switched to Avast!, which has been running well on my system (Win7, 64-bit, Intel i7, 8GB RAM), but I wasn't too happy about their personal data collection practice (though they are upfront about it). So I tried BitDefender after seeing this thread, but it didn't work out for me. It slowed down my system noticeably, though I don't have any direct evidence to prove how it did so. I presumed that it was running some scans in the background. But even when I suspended the scans that I could find, the system was still slow. Also, at one point the main BitDefender panel disappeared and I lost the controls to the scans etc.

After uninstalling it and re-installing Avast! things seem to be back to normal. So, yes, my mileage varied, though it's a bit of a mystery to me what exactly was going on.

40hz:
After uninstalling it and re-installing Avast! things seem to be back to normal. So, yes, my mileage varied, though it's a bit of a mystery to me what exactly was going on.
-dr_andus (February 23, 2014, 05:04 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yes indeed. Similar things have happened to me as well. Can't really say "why" or "what" that much these days. All most of us can really say is what works for us this week.

Sad state of affairs, but there you have it. ;D :-\

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