Firewall AV software?

[DICKEYBIRD]

I just recovered (with the help of HSM members) from a serious PC brouhaha and in the process had to uninstall my Road Runner provided EZArmor protection suite. Comcast has now bought out RR and has only McAfee security software available for free.

1) Anybody have experience with the McAfee product and do you think it'll work OK on my old steam powered W98 PC? It's a PIII 800 mhz with 512 meg RAM.

2) I have a W2000 disc and installed it on my shop PC from scratch. I'd like to move up to W2000 on the house PC but am skeert I may kill all the data. Any words of wisdom? All my drives are FAT32.

3) Now that I have this PC repaired, I would like to "clone" it's drive to a spare HD I have on hand for emergency backup if needed. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this?

Thanks!
Milton

 

[Cedge]

Milton
There is no reason to ever lose your data anymore, assuming you have a USB port. Just put the old drive(s) in external hard drive shells and plug them into the new system. You might need a USB hub if your system has only one USB port as one of my old systems did.

When you plug in the shells, your computer will assign them a drive letter and from there you can access any old data you want. The drives in the shells are simply additional hard drives, just as if you'd installed them inside the box. Add more as you need them. I'm out to drive N on this system although several of the drives are removable media like flash card readers, my wife's embroidery converter and a dongle that's not used much.

This trick has saved me many a tear in the past few years. I no longer format drives when the OS craps out. I pop in a new hard drive, load the OS and then put the old drive in a shell. Nothing is lost on the old but the boot sector of the OS which doesn't matter.

Steve

 

[DICKEYBIRD]

Thanks Steve! You make it sound very easy.

Since I have W98SE now, does it recognize external USB devices? I guess an external HD shell comes with software to make it play nice with W98?

 

[Cedge]

You'd need to check for compatibility with 98. I based the response on the stated plan to move to win2000. I run win2k pro and it's no problem to do things this way. Win2K is pretty darned stable compared to 98se. 98Se was a bit of an bast**d child as OS's go.

Steve

 

[shred]

You'd need to check for compatibility with 98. I based the response on the stated plan to move to win2000. I run win2k pro and it's no problem to do things this way. Win2K is pretty darned stable compared to 98se. 98Se was a bit of an bast**d child as OS's go.

Steve

98SE was, however, considerably better than Windows ME. Man did that blow.

SE recognizes a number, but not all, USB mass storage devices. It doesn't like NTFS, so you can't have files over 4GB or so.. not a problem unless you like duping DVDs or you use the Windows Backup program.. Don't use the Windows backup program.

 

[Cedge]

These drives come with driver software on CD, but the point is that you'll want to check the package to make sure win98SE is supported. I recently had to switch from using a full suite of Norton products because they limit the number of times you can reload them from CD's which locked me out of my copies. Then when I went to buy a new suite, brought it home and popped in the CD only to find Norton no longer supports anything below WinXP . They won't let me renew my old subscriptions because they lapsed. So... Norton can kiss my...uh.... you get the idea.

No doubt about win98ME... if you wanted to learn to troubleshoot windows, it was THE software to own. You spent more time trying to fix problems than you did running applications. You really couldn't fix the darned thing but you did get lots of often unwanted training while going through the motions with the MS techs. I finally told my brother that I'd disown him if he didn't disown his ME powered system.

Steve

 

[tattoomike68]

Milton
There is no reason to ever lose your data anymore, assuming you have a USB port. Just put the old drive(s) in external hard drive shells and plug them into the new system. You might need a USB hub if your system has only one USB port as one of my old systems did.

When you plug in the shells, your computer will assign them a drive letter and from there you can access any old data you want. The drives in the shells are simply additional hard drives, just as if you'd installed them inside the box. Add more as you need them. I'm out to drive N on this system although several of the drives are removable media like flash card readers, my wife's embroidery converter and a dongle that's not used much.

This trick has saved me many a tear in the past few years. I no longer format drives when the OS craps out. I pop in a new hard drive, load the OS and then put the old drive in a shell. Nothing is lost on the old but the boot sector of the OS which doesn't matter.

Steve

bingo, you said it all.

I dont use AV or a firewall and run sites that are full of hackers and creeps.

I know its been over 4 years with no firewall or Av now and there is no problems on this box.

AV is a rip off, if you watch what you do you will never need it , backups when things are fine make it a real no need item.

now days our ISP's run AV and our e mail servers do too, we wont need it as much as we used to.

I know I dont care. I can write a virus. now days we dont have to mess with it near as much.

 

[Capt Turk]

I've been using Grissoft's AVG for several years now. I've tried Norton, and McCafee when they came on new machines. They both suck big time. They are memory hogs. They are no end of trouble when trying to install new software, and they slow the computer down so much it isn't even funny. Plus they want you to pay money for the updates. They were both replaced with AVG within a couple of weeks.

AVG is FREE. The updates are free. It doesn't slow the computer down, or hog all the memory.

I came across it when complaining about Norton, and McCafee, to several of my friends that are computer programmers. They ALL recommended AVG.

I've never had any trouble with virus's using AVG. Run Spybot Search and Destroy, along with Adaware SE, and you won't have any problems. Spybot and Adaware are also free, and their updates are free also.

You won't be disappointed with them.

Capt Turk

 

[shred]

I like AVG as well-- even though it's not hit on anything recently except for my pet viruses I keep around to make sure it's still working

You do have to poke around on their web site to find the always-free version, or you may end up with a time-limited trial.

 

[DICKEYBIRD]

Thanks C/T and Shred; I'll try AVG 1st thing tomorrow morning after my 2nd cup'a Joe. I do better with computers when all my brain cells are fresh & caffeinated.

 

[firebird]

Hi

I have used AVG free for a couple of years now and can reccomend it. I also agree with comments on Nortons and Mcafee, I have tried them and to be honest I don't rate them. However I have recently 'aquired' a copy of Spyware doctor. Left running in the background it is very memory hungry and slows down my computer so I disable it and just re enable it and run it once a week. On the last run I did it found 137 that AVG missed! some it classed as high threat. You can pay for a better version of AVG that may do the job better but if your anything like me I don't like paying for anything. There are ways of getting these programmes that I could tell you about but I think I had better have a comment from the management as to whether they think this is the place to talk about such activities before I say anymore.

Cheers

 

[Bogstandard]

FB,
This as far as we are aware is a totally legal site, so really discussing such things is frowned upon.

But, what was that?

Oh! THAT member has an email address.

John

 

[firebird]

Hi John

Nuff said

Cheers

 

[shred]

Note that the free AVG is only AntiVirus and does not include a spyware detector or firewall.. you have to go elsewhere for those (and you absolutely want them), but be careful since there are a lot of programs that claim to be spyware cleaners/detectors that are actually malware themselves.

 

[rake60]

I ran AVG for about 6 months, then Comcast made McAfee available free for it's users.
When I installed the McGee again if found several things that got past AVG.

I do not use McAfee's spyware program.
I use Spybot Search & Destroy It is a free program that can be downloaded this link.
They WILL accept donations, but the program is free.
I can promise you it will find things that will have you wondering how they got there. :-[

If you are a gamer, Spybot will point out Wild Tanget as a Possibly Unwanted Program.
That would be one you'd want to leave in place.

Rick

 

[1Kenny]

Ditto on the Spybot Search & Destroy.

Kenny

 

[Canyonman]

Also agree,

Spybot Search and Destroy, Hands Down!

I got stuck with {well my choice, I thought I would try} the Suite from Uniblue. Total garbage, and I would agree with the statement below: SpyEraser is Malware unto it self.

Take Care and Be Well,

Ken