Virus Vaccination and Computer Security

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

dwelp — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:01:36 GMT

Hardly a virus, but the DOS virus that informed you that you had water on your disk drive and then spun up the floppy drive to send it through the spin cycle while the graphic on the screen showed the water draining. Or the one that set the screen upside down.

Or that email attachment that turned the volume all the way up and then exclaimed "hey everybody I'm surfing porno over here"

They seem so innocent now.

I also remember the heated arguments of how could a DOS computer get a virus infection from the floppy disk unless the machine was attempted to be booted from the floppy or run some form of executable from the infected disk. Most people tossed aside everything they knew how a computer operates to declare there was magic involved.

Dave

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

glamontagne — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:44:32 GMT

My favorite were "Sasser," "Klez," "BugBear," and the "Blaster worm." The new styles of viruses are meant to steal, the only ones were more to embarrass you. Remember the hundreds of emails that would shoot out of your computer with random files being attached. Those were the good old days.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

shipley.c — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:27:10 GMT

My favorite viri were "I love you" and "Melissa" - so romantic compared to things like "VirtuMundo"

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

tsg_kevin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:10:38 GMT

since we are feeling nostalgic this monday morning, i remember getting my first anti-virus, F-PROT i think it was, at the local university because of a Michaelangelo virus. They were giving them out for free. Back in the day when virus writers were just punks proving their coding prowess, and not crime syndicates and mafia businesses.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

EvilNetworkOverlord — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:59:49 GMT

Touche. I had completely forgotten about the 6.2, 6.21 and 6.22 versions.

Ah, the good old days. When you could upgrade a computer's operating system in 10 mimutes, with three floppy disks, without disturbing the applications or data.

-ENO

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

shipley.c — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:54:07 GMT

MSAV with DOS 6.0? Wow, I don't even think I was aware of viruses when I was using DOS 6 (not even sure I ever used 6.0, I used 6.22)

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

EvilNetworkOverlord — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:50:35 GMT

Wow. What a great thread. Like a trip down memory lane.

I still remember buying my first copy of WordPerfect 4.1 for DOS, for $499.99. A few months later I spent another couple hundred to upgrade to version 5.0 so that I could create documents with a two-column page format (a feature I never used.)

WordPerfect's strength, along with having a lot of features and printer drivers, was excellent technical support. And they promoted market growth by making sure you could install and run the program without ever entering the serial number. A WP rep once said they estimated that for every licensed copy of WP in existence, there were about four additional installations. In his words, "That's five computers that aren't running our competitors' product, and we only have to support one."

WP's demise had nothing to do with freebies from MS. WP Corp. didn't take Windows seriously. They waited what, 3? 4? years before they finally released WP/Windows. And when they did, it was buggy. It also hijacked Windows printing subsystem in order to take advantage of the WP printer drivers. Meanwhile, MS used that time to improve Word and gain market share. WP never recovered.

I've never seen a free pre-loaded Office, other than trialware. I've seen free Word combined with Works, but that was much later.

Anyway, back to AV software.

I missed the brief download period for MS Security essentials but I found it on a shareware site and have it on one of my workstations. (Just Google by name and "download".) Looks OK so far. And I have a hunch that it will remain free. It probably won't be more than 80-90 % effective, but then neither are any of the others. One of my on-going projects involves the weekly downloading of hundreds of infected files. I do nothing with them except scan them every night for malware. No matter what product I use, it's amazing how many Trojans and worms go undetected for days or even weeks. That's why my network configurations usually protect the workstations in other ways, with AV software being the "last resort."

-ENO

P.S Does anyone else remember MSAV that came with MS-DOS 6.0?

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

shipley.c — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:30:54 GMT

Tim, was this a joke?

Who better to understand security threats to Windows than Microsoft?

Because if not I could give a list of the types of people more qualified.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

Jesse — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:06:40 GMT

I have used WordPerfect since 1985, and I never was able to buy a computer with WordPerfect installed for free, but within the past 10 years I did get computers with free versions of MS Word. I remember, possibly incorrectly, that MS Office suite was being given away by the likes of Dell. Since I have never used MS Office, or bought a computer with a free version of it installed, I may be wrong about the full suite being given away. However, WordPerfect used to be the leading program (and is probably still a better word processor than Word), but WP continuously lost market share to MS through this "free" marketing. Finally MS had to invest in Corel to keep WordPerfect alive, to have some token of competition and not be nakedly a monopoly.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

glamontagne — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:16:59 GMT

I don't recall them giving away office with new computers. In my prior career, I worked for a big-box retailer. None of our computers came with Office, they came with either Word Perfect, or Microsoft Works for word processing.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

Jesse — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:47:02 GMT

It would be hard for anybody not to expect them to try to monopolize another corner of the software market. They may or may not plan to extract an additional monetary tribute directly from their subjects.

For the monetary tribute model we have Office, which they used to give away with every new major-brand computer, and not charge too much for purchases; once they nearly wiped out all competition, they give trial versions and charge a lot for a license.

OTOH, many products are incorporated into the OS for "free," like Internet Explorer, which they use to lead (or push) their subjects into using other MS products and services.

I'm sure they have a vast spreadsheet to figure out how to maximize profits from different pricing models

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

glamontagne — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:13:31 GMT

I used Windows Defender when it was called Microsoft Anti-spyware. It worked pretty well. I stopped using it when they forced you to upgrade it.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

dwelp — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:39:56 GMT

Didn't Windows defender start out as a free product, then when it moved fully out of beta you had to buy it in a five pack to continue to use it on XP (or was it 2000)? Of course it became integrated into Vista.

Some how I don't tend to trust 'free' from Microsoft.

Dave

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

tclaremont — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:26:53 GMT

Who better to understand security threats to Windows than Microsoft?

However, I look at ani-virus software kinda like a referree. He does not work for either team, but is there to protect the integrity of the game. Microsoft is biased, to say the least.

I can't say that I wont consider it, though.

Anyone want to venture a guess what is going to happen to the anti-virus market now?

They can call it ZING! or STING! or BINGBING... or nauseat-ING.

Re: Which anti-virus to use?

Yann — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:47:33 GMT

Chris, everyone is getting that same "not available" message from that site right now. I read somewhere that Microsoft will make the beta available again some time in the near future, just not sure when. So keep your eyes open on that one.

Myself, I was eager to try out this security solution and was disappointed when I found out that I can't get it because I'm in Canada. But based on reports I've read from others who've tested it out already, two key observations were made:

1. It's VERY fast.
2. It provides very good virus protection.

On the very fast front, some people mentioned that an entire scan of their machine was completed by the software in under 6 minutes, which is incredible. And in terms of virus detection, tests done by independent agencies rank this solution right up there with the likes of AVG and Avira (which I use).

Guess we'll have to see!

Yann