MattR Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 Firefox has many well know vulnerabilities, http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/k...rabilities.html, if anyone is paranoid about malware the browser that has had the lowest number of vulnerabilties is Opera. True, but let's not forget, Firefox is still only in 0.9, it's FREE, and if used in conjuntion with Spyware Blaster, fixes much of the vulnerabilities you mention. I think the main benefit of using Firefox over IE is the fact that without a plugin it won't execute ActiveX components, the main source of all malware. Another point to be made is that IE's rendering engine has not been touched for over 4 years. All updates have been bug fixes. So how can it be standards complient? I wish all users were born with common sense and vigilance. Why are you sceptical? Mainly becuase, without any A/V software installed my box's run fine, no virri, no spy/ad ware, nothing, just smooth running with about 50MB of Ram in use while idle. AS SOON I INSTALL *ANY* A/V software, Virri comes from nowhere. Now you may say, "Well how do you know your machine isn't infected if you don't have any A/V software?" Regular port scans, regular process watches, and generally just knowing how the machine should 'feel'. I can't remember the last time I had a virus on my XP box. But truth be told, if you don't want viruses, you should try something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binary Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 (edited) Regular port scans, regular process watches, and generally just knowing how the machine should 'feel'. My point exactly, most users wouldn't know about this hence they should be running an AV application so I would recomend most people run one. AVG processes are using 6 MB on my machine. Edited September 8, 2004 by binary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickle Posted September 8, 2004 Author Share Posted September 8, 2004 There has been xpi based malware written for firefox, there have been vulnerabilities and if 90% of people used it i'm sure we would see a lot more. I still hope that ultimately they can produce a more secure browser than IE thanks to open source, there is still an element of security through obscurity though on the part of mozilla devs which is worrying. Someone mention W3C XHTML strict and CSS all the way baby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gigahertz Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 I use Eset NOD32 anti-virus - which many experts like 'Virus Bulletin' believe is the best anti-virus product in the world. It's very fast and small since it is written in machine code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kondor Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 (edited) I think i've had 2 viruses in 10 years No actually, I dont get email on my PC. You would be amazed at the amount of spyware type infections that now expoit web ports ect. The last one I had was on 3rd September, and was called "HTML_MHTREDIR.E" http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/enterprise...HTML_MHTREDIR.T which litterally just popped in as I was surfing a webpage. Nothing downloaded but some sort of expliot. I only keep logs for 15 days. The source was it came from one of my tempory internet files. It was picked up on a real time scan (so it got it within seconds of the infection) I hate to think how many of these things folks pick up without knowing as there is a load of em out there and without doing real time scans you could be infected for days or weeks before a regular scan picks it up. I should add that none of them have come from the uk420 website. prior to about 12 months ago I thought that viruses only happened to idiots that downloaded from dodgy areas, then I started checking better. PC-Cillin is using about 4MB (4,212k) on this machine. Edited September 8, 2004 by Kondor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattR Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 (edited) If you are stupid enough to ignore such warnings you deserve all you get. Edited September 8, 2004 by MattR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickle Posted September 8, 2004 Author Share Posted September 8, 2004 Unfortunately many users just click anywhere to get rid of a dialogue box that interrupts their flow. I've seen them do it, it is a stupid thing to do I agree but the people who do it actually arent stupid Malware authors have been taking advantage of that aspect of users for years now by getting them to click ok to the IE install dialogue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binary Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 If you are stupid enough to ignore such warnings you deserve all you get. I'm constantly having to give the younger techies a clip round the ear at work for this attitude, you need some empathy with less savvy users. A lot of people have not interest in or understand this sort of stuff, as mickle said it doesn't make them any less intelligent than yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sibannac Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 http://www.download.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=...x=33&search.y=4 Avast Home edition free and updates as and when. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kondor Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 but this is the thing, Ive been on the net for 10 years, I know how to shut a box down and even how to shut an application down without clicking. A few confident people surf the net with only half protection, and think that if they close boxes properly and never install anything that they wont get a virus. I used to think that too, how arrogant I was! but where do people get this idea from? Its total crap, If you want to see a virus install itself on a freeware protected computer running M$ programs without the user downloading it or closing a window or box incorrectly im sure I could find a link or two which would infect your PC in seconds. If you dont belive they exist then chances are you are probably already infected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickle Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 (edited) Its total crap, If you want to see a virus install itself on a freeware protected computer running M$ programs without the user downloading it or closing a window or box incorrectly im sure I could find a link or two which would infect your PC in seconds. Theres the problem, if they are running IE then yes they are a sitting duck. Simple solution is dont run it. If you ran firefox, thunderbird instead of IE and Outlook Express and were very careful about not installing software then you would not get any viruses or malware and wouldnt even need a virus checker. Edited September 9, 2004 by mickle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickle Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 No actually, I dont get email on my PC. You would be amazed at the amount of spyware type infections that now expoit web ports ect. The last one I had was on 3rd September, and was called "HTML_MHTREDIR.E" http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/enterprise...HTML_MHTREDIR.T which litterally just popped in as I was surfing a webpage. That was not exploiting "web ports" it was trying to exploit the fact that you run IE, it wouldnt affect any non IE based browser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chip Posted September 13, 2004 Share Posted September 13, 2004 I'm one of those less informed persons using the internet. I recently upgraded to broadband and then last week i was directed to get my system scanned and i found a load of viruses. I installed spybot and ad aware and they found loads of stuff which was deleted. However, everytime i booted up they detected more of the same and i lost the ability to get online. Thinking i had a serious virus i got hold of a copy of McAfee security suite and installed it. Now i cant even get online using IE6 so i am using Mozilla Firebird. BUT, this has stopped me being able to access my work email!! Nightmare. Plus my system seems to run far slower than before and to top it all, my PC keeps trying to log on using the old dial up modem!! Confused...? i should f##king say so! Any quick fix ideas anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binary Posted September 13, 2004 Share Posted September 13, 2004 Any quick fix ideas anyone? You could try rebooting your PC in safe mode, press F8 as it boots, then run your virus scanner, adaware, spybot. Also within spybot select the imunise option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chip Posted September 14, 2004 Share Posted September 14, 2004 cheers binary, i'll see what happens.....although i think that now i just have damged files and no viruses Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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