MS Essentials as sole AV?

[QUOTE=electrotune1200;683811][QUOTE=livichops;683806]

Electrotune,

As far I know, Norton 3.0 was brand new when I purchased Dec '09

If you have subscription time still available.... You're eligible to upgrade to 360 v.4

Thanks Electrotune, but I really am put off Norton due my my personal experience with them

livichops said:

Thanks Electrotune, but I really am put off Norton due my my personal experience with them

No worries.... I'm not trying to sway your decision one way or the other. Just letting you know that v.4 is available.

Yep, Sandboxie is my favourite security app and I also use Returnil with no realtime AV/AM.

Malwarebytes is used as on demand to check detections of samples which are uploaded/reported if not hit.

MRG Tests

Malware Research Group Project 023

Project number: 023
Project Details: On Demand Scan Test
Operating System used: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3
Number of applications used: 15
Number of malware samples used: 259.694

MRG Tests Malware Research Group

As usual; there is some good advice from the peeps on this forum.

My 2¢:

MS Security Essentials is good enough when it comes to AV and other anti-malware protection.

This combined with Sandboxie is even better.

In addition I like to use the "MVPS hosts file" (Google that). The "MVPS hosts file" prevents websites that host ads from downloading those ads (as long as the hosts file is regularly updated).

What happens is this; when you are just generally surfing the web and searching for things (like Photoshop tips), you may end up on a website that has good information but has to host ads to make money to pay to keep their site alive.

When these sites host ads; they do so by running an engine that retrieves these ads from ad servers. These ad servers can be located anywhere in the world in server farms that do data warehousing. More reputable sites will go through the extra trouble of scanning the ad content before sending it to you. Most sites do not have the extra budget to do that and simply send the ad. So, as you might have guessed, you can get an "ad" that is actually malicious content. In the case of these lovely "Antivirus 2008/2009/2010, XP, etc, etc" virus' they are most likely flash programs that get sent as an ad request.

So, if you use the "MVPS hosts file" in conjunction with a good AV and Sandboxie; well, I tell people it is like wearing three condoms at the same time. Layered protection!

Oh, and if you do all of that on a virtual machine...you get the picture...

And I didn't even mention using a hardware firewall as opposed to a software firewall. Layers, layers, layers!

pparks1 said:

cokeonice said:

So, if you use the "MVPS hosts file" in conjunction with a good AV and Sandboxie; well, I tell people it is like wearing three condoms at the same time. Layered protection!

Isn't it recommended to not layer condoms? I believe it's more dangerous than just using 1...at least from what I remember.

LOL!

I do not know about the recommended uses of condoms! Perhaps it was a bad analogy?

Another one I like to use is, "I like to wear two condoms all day long. That way, when I take one off at night, I feel WILD"! I think that is an old Smothers Brothers joke...