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the definitive minimal amount of programs for the greatest security?

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dom424:
"i think that's a really important point.
for most programs having a support forum is a nice bonus but not super important.  for security software its *really* important because they will provide a place where people can discuss possible security risks and weaknesses, which otherwise would go unfixed"

That is why I started using Outpost.  Their forum which is run by the users of Outpost and not Agnitum is superb. 

Ann Elm:
Thanks dom I've asked this in other forums and never got a definite reply!!

nudone:
i'll definately look into process guard and the other programs you mention mob.

but i am curious as to what the differences are between things like process guard and microsoft's antispyware beta software. as microsoft's software is free (for the moment) i would favour recommending that to people i know.

for the most part i'm not entirely concerned of what to install on my own machine as i think i know what risks i'm taking (if any). my main interest is how to protect the average users machine with the minimum amount of fuss - without actually disconnecting that person from the net.

unfortunately, when posting this thread, i conveniently forgot the main problem with security issues on the pc and that is of the person sitting in front of it.

programs like process guard sound like they do a fantastic job except for one small problem: that is they require the user to understand the dialog boxes that pop up in front of them.

i have no doubt that people visiting this forum understand their computers well enough to know when to click 'accept' or 'deny' on a security alert dialog box but, alas, i don't believe that is the majority of users.

i repeatedly have to fix computers for people i know even though i have installed security programs for them and emphasised that they should be suspicious of everything they receive over the net. the problem does not lie so much with the software that is protecting their machine but with the way they understand how to use it.

as sad as it sounds, i think it would be fair to say that they wouldn't even know what internet explorer is let alone whether they should allow it through the firewall. maybe i know too many lazy people who just don't care what all the programs are called on their machine or maybe this is just how your typical user is. i suspect it is the latter.

they simply want to get the task done whilst they are sat at their desk and any security dialog box will be quickly dismissed without any real thought of what it said or what it means. they might take the policy to simply block everything when asked what to do by a dialog box, but then they will learn that this was incorrect as programs stop working correctly; so they will then learn to click 'accept' for everything to be allowed through the security layer and then we are back to the stage of having no barrier at all.

it would be easy to say all these people are morons and they deserve the problems they receive if they can't be bothered to learn about their system. i think that is a bit unfair and it doesn't help much. i admit, it isn't hard to learn the common day to day programs that one uses but when dialog boxes appear asking for permission for 'notavirus_honest.exe' to access the internet i suspect the people i'm talking about will interpret that as being a trustworthy and legitimate program to run. anything more obscure like a malicious piece of software named 'sxxx312.exe' will just confuse the user and then they will click whatever is required just to make the dialog box go away (i made 'sxxx312.exe' up).

i would just love to hear of some piece of security software that you could install and then forget about - knowing that it is protecting everything without any need for user intervention. being realistic, i suppose i am asking for the impossible as the user will always have the final say on what they allow onto their machine no matter what barriers are in place.

mouser:
it's true, a program like Process Guard is to advanced for the average user.

maybe the best security app would be like what mob kept saying, call it: "CommonSensePro Xp"
and all it would do is watch you and if it sees you about to try to open some exe attachment in your email,
or something similarly rescue it would just pop up a giant warning message saying "OMG ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING?!@!#?"

a firewall, an antivirus which updates daily, and avoidance of high rish activities like opening email attachments are the 3 tools you need.

actually we havent mentioned something equally important in terms of security, which is making regular backups -
things do go wrong, whether it be security problem or hd crash, and you need to have regular backups to plan for this inevitability.
getting a virus is not so bad if you have a recent backup to go back to.

nudone:
have to agree that having a backup of the system is the most important thing - i've recommended it to everyone since someone introduced me to ghost many moons ago. at the time it seemed magical being able to back up win95 (i think it was that far back) and i've been absolutely dumb founded ever since that a true backup method isn't built into windows straight out of the box - how more fundamental a thing do you want.

on the occassions that i've attempted to clean someone's pc of viruses it usually only took a few days for their machine to be infected again - answer: just wipe the operating system off and put the backup image on again. i've learnt that it's not even worth attempting to scan and clean a system most of the time.

only one thing to bare in mind with this kind of approach (and i'm sure most of us will have adopted it here) is to store valueble docs and config files on a separate partition so they don't get wiped out in the restore process.

i'm really looking forward to the 'backup' software review mouser as it's something i've never done on a folder/file basis - just whole parititions for me.

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