freash install... need help setting back up

[ChrisCantSkate]

so my computer basically took a complete shit on me, had to reformat the whole HD. now i want to get it setup so its not gonna happen again. ive decided im not going to use any p2p program, if i need anything, i'll download it on my roommates and then transfer it over the network

im wondering whats a good firewall program to use, a good adware that will catch the stuff ahead of time, a good virus scanner, and anything else i should be running to keep the crap out.

im leaning towards tiny personal firewall, since its free and i herd its good, but i dont wana start installing 4 different ones till i know what i wana use. and the adware/virus stuff i know nothing about as far as whats the best (and preferably free ) ones out now.

[GT40FIED]

The 2005 Norton Internet Security pack comes with a personal firewall, Norton AV, and a few other things. The firewall in MS SP2 is decent, but I also use a blacklister (PeerGuardian2), but that's not really much use if you're not using P2P software. It does, however, block connections from spyware even if it's your computer that's trying to do the sending. Ad-Aware SE Personal is great for cookies and little bits and pieces of adware while Spybot S&D v1.3 takes care of spyware part. I also have a cracked copy of Xoftspy just for extra measure...even though it doesn't get much of anything that Ad-Aware won't. Personally, I'm loving PeerGuardian2. It lets me know who's trying to look at my comp (and even logs it) as well as letting me know if my computer is trying to send anything out so I can track down problems if they pop up in the window. Plus it blocks tons of IP ranges (something on the order of over 600,000,000). The only problem is that sometimes sites you visit maybe be flagged but that's easy enough to take care of since you can unblock an IP range for either 15 minutes, an hour, or permanently. Plus it's open source so it's always being improved. You'd be amazed at how many sites come back with hits for spyware that you'd never know about.

[ebpda9]

why not make 2 partitions ? one with the software and os and the other one with the crap ?

[blind34_1]

i just reloaded as well, and im using this program we've been using on all the new school district computers we are building, called RestoreIT! (not free). Basically, this program will take an image of your hard drive, and store it in a hidden partition. It will also back incremental backups each time you start your computer or whenever you specify. This is especially useful in the schools where spyware is a HUGE problem. If there is too much on there to remove and repair, we just restore the image, and all is back to normal.

This option would not be as good if you stored a lot of personal data on the imaged drive. Thats why a second hard drive or at least partition would be better.

As far as protecting yourself, I use only Norton AV 2005 (you dont need that whole internet security suite; its a bunch of crap you dont need, i've heard it runs a bunch of crap in the background.) NAV2005 includes worm protection, which can replace the windows firewall, but its your choice, both are good. (but then again I use a hardware firewall, so GT40FIED could give you more detailed info on that)

however, if been noticing some problem with NAV2005 and my machine, it will occasionaly hang my machine when im trying to shut down. ccApp (part of norton) will stop responding and cause issues. In reading a few reviews of top antivirus software, mcafee 8 scored higher than norton, in effectiveness, ease of use, etc.

Microsoft's AntiSpyware program is one of the best I've seen so far. Its still in Beta, and its free, and very effective. I've been testing it for about 4-5 months and have been very impressed at what it finds. It updates itself, and will run scheduled scans just like an antivirus program.

spybot s&d is still very good, but ive noticed while running microsofts program, spybot finds nothing (or very little)

you might also want to remove a few windows components, specifically all the messenger services. I saw my friends machine go nuts with these pop up dialog boxes which i now know come from an exploit in the messenger service. The service can be removed in the group policy editor (start, run, gpedit.msc) there are a lot of cool options in there, but a lot can also screw up your system. change ONE thing at a time, if you do it.

[GT40FIED]

I've noticed the ccApp hanging up for me, too. Then again, that's a staple of Norton products. I used to get hung up on my old Norton program, as well...and that was the 2002 software. Funny how their shit doesn't change in 3 years. I downloaded and have been using the MS spyware stuff and it's worked out well so far. I don't know if I've been keeping on top of things of if I've just gotten lucky, but it's only picked up 3 or 4 things Ad-Aware and Spybot missed. Good stuff overall. Plus you can schedule it like a regular AV program. I still use PeerGuardian2...it's great for nailing incoming threats before they become problems. It's just good (free) insurance since Spybot and Ad-Aware don't update as often as I'd like.