broadband

[lukemg]

Cheers all, it's not through BT. Will look at a wireless router, might be useful anyway as got a laptop and want to work around the house. Looks like I will have to scrub it first to clean it up

[Mordac]

Not BT Broadband is it? I had no end of trouble with them.

I had to use a BT ADSL line (without a router, for various reasons) last year at a client site. My firewall recorded over 1000 attempted intrusions in a single day. Personally I wouldn't touch BT with a tulipty stick, but if you must, for Gods sake use a router, pref one with a decent firewall built in.

[BoredBloke]

Don't surf using an XP account with admin level. Set a limited account and use that when surfing.

[triboix]

Send winblow to the bin and install Linux.

More seriously, you can install a dual-boot.

[IR35 Avoider]

router?

I would like to put in a second vote for you getting a router.

I've had broadband for a few years, seldom had active virus checking and never had firewall software or hardware. As far as I know my PC has never been infected with anything. (I did install a free demo of McAfee a few weeks ago which said PC was clean, and ran someone's (Microsofts?) free Spyware scanner a few months ago, which said the same thing.)

[ratewhore]

You could use a virtual machine or a cd bootable o/s for your browsing if paranoia is an issue...

[Dalek Supreme]

All,
Recently joined the broadband revolution but getting loads of malware/viruses bombarding me. Got Kaspersky AV up to date and Adaware and MS Defender but everytime I connect (to dodgy or undodgy sites) I get hammered and the laptop grinds to a halt very quickly. Got XP Sp2 on there, can anyone assist with settings, other SW I need to make me a bit more resilient ? I am starting to think I will chuck a vanilla XP build on there, ghost it and rebuild every week ! Help !

I suspect you may be running AtW's SKA.

[Paddy]

All,
Recently joined the broadband revolution but getting loads of malware/viruses bombarding me. Got Kaspersky AV up to date and Adaware and MS Defender but everytime I connect (to dodgy or undodgy sites) I get hammered and the laptop grinds to a halt very quickly. Got XP Sp2 on there, can anyone assist with settings, other SW I need to make me a bit more resilient ? I am starting to think I will chuck a vanilla XP build on there, ghost it and rebuild every week ! Help !

Anti Virus software will not pick up all spy-ware.

You will need good anti spy ware. If you don’t have anti-spy ware at least delete your temp files, cookies and cache on a daily basis. Some spy ware will embed itself in the root of C:, even though you make hidden files visible, you still can not see them.

Spy ware will redirect you Google searches to fake internet sites, log your key stokes and send the files including you passwords to the crooks who will then have access to you bank accounts etc. Most of the sites operate from the USA, Nigeria and Russia with some now in China.

[Andyw]

British Telecom are not only crap but they are robbing gits ! they advertise BBand for 17.99 per month then when you call them, they say you have to have a landline phone, I say I dont need a phone as I have my mobile and they are cheaper, they say you cant have BB without a line, so, extra £13 per month line rental gets added, that puts the Direct Debits up to 28 per month, then after 6 months they whack your DD's up to £42 per month. Hence I switched !

It seems anything with british in the name, British Telecom, British Gas = big rip off !

[AtW]

Ad-Aware

[Fleetwood]

I use Avasti, and do checks with Ad-aware and Spybot every so often. Am I doing the right thing?
Plus I'm told you have to physically disconnect the PC from the connection, even when it's turned off. Is that right?

[ratewhore]

Not BT Broadband is it? I had no end of trouble with them.

Anyways, good advice already given, particularly the adsl router which usually have built in firewall capability.

New build, all service packs, non-MS firewall and AV and anti-spyware (Norton has a bad rep btw apparently) and off you go...

Alternatively, spend a bit of cash on a mac mini and away you go with a smug look on your face...

[TheMonkey]

What the feck?

1. Reinstall the whole thing disconnected from the internet.
2. Make sure the firewall is working properly then connect it.
3. Run windows update
4. Install Firefox and use that instead.
5. Install AVG free from http://free.grisoft.com/
6. Install adaware.
7. Now go about your dirty business.

You won't have a problem again.

Actually, make sure you get a router rather than using an ADSL modem. there is no excuse not to have one at these prices:

http://www.dsldepot.co.uk/

(they all work fine btw!!!)

I've noticed that since I've had a Mac and am using OS X, I've not had a single problem with malicious software or web sites.

[lukemg]

All,
Recently joined the broadband revolution but getting loads of malware/viruses bombarding me. Got Kaspersky AV up to date and Adaware and MS Defender but everytime I connect (to dodgy or undodgy sites) I get hammered and the laptop grinds to a halt very quickly. Got XP Sp2 on there, can anyone assist with settings, other SW I need to make me a bit more resilient ? I am starting to think I will chuck a vanilla XP build on there, ghost it and rebuild every week ! Help !