On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 19:21:17 -0400, in <alt.privacy.spyware>, "mto"
<nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Well I don't endlessly fix, patch, and screw around and I DO have a clue,
[snip]

That's great! Except that you then immediately turn around and prove the
exact opposite:

> having for many years run a very large and very busy website that
> delivered a minimum of 50 copies of whatever the latest viruses may be
> and several hundred spams a day to my inbox. I DO use XP, IE and OE
[snip]

And you don't see the teensiest little correlation there, eh?

> ...because that is
> what 90% of my visitors use
[snip]

Despite it's time-honored popularity, that has to be the lamest excuse for
using bad software I've ever heard.

> ...and it is convenient to be able to explain where
> problems they are having might lie
[snip]

You need to experience the stab wound to explain that a knife can cut?

More to the point, if you write standards-compliant code, you need not worry
about browser-specific glitches.

> And when I drop by every now and then over at Steve Gibson's to get my
> security checked, guess what? My computer simply doesn't exist
>
[snip]

<SPLORF!>

"The blind man can't see me, so I must not exist."

> Get rid of McAffee/Norton/etc. and install PcCillin - www. antivirus.com,
> which is based on both definitions of known viruses and heuristic (the
> others are definitions only)
[snip]

False to fact.

<http://cws.internet.com/reviews/virus-nav3.html>
<http://www.latamnews.com/virus_magistr2_e090401.html>

> Get ZoneAlarm - spring for the PRO version.
>
[snip]

No, don't -- at least, not if you want protection, as opposed to generating
bogus "SOMEONE IS HACKING MY PORT 80!" GWF alarms every few seconds. Zone
Alarm is NOT a "firewall", no matter how much a certain blow-hard
know-nothing with the initials "S.G." might hype it as such.

For a small dose of reality, see:

<http://www.samspade.org/d/persfire.html>
<http://www.samspade.org/d/firewalls.html>

> Get the free version of AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy. Set them
> both to run every time you reboot.
>
[snip]

Gross overkill, unless you're in the habit of downloading and blindly
installing all manner of SuckerWare. Even then, running these utilities
immediately after any software install/update should be more than
sufficient, as long as you're not also doing something else really stupid
(like, for example, web-brosing with MSIE in "I'm bent over and greased up!"
mode).

> Set your security everywhere to high.
>
[snip]

Are there any non-malware applications which actually have such "settings"?

--

Jay T. Blocksom
--------------------------------
Appropriate Technology, Inc.
usenet01[at]appropriate-tech.net


"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

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