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Advice on what else to install with a fresh Windows 7 Ultimate install...

purbeast0

purbeast0

No Lifer
I haven't formatted my newest PC, which is now 2 years, since I put it together, and I put Vista on it back then.

Well I got some really nasty virus a few weeks ago and I cannot get rid of it.

I'm going to do a fresh install of w7 ultimate this weekend, and I'm just wondering what are some of hte essential things that would be good to install to help the system run smoothly.

I'm also wondering if there are any configs that will help it run smoother and quicker, such as turning off some of the startup things and what not.

On Vista I was using IE for web browsing, but I'm going to either go FireFox or Chrome when I install W7. What are the good addons to get for these? I know that AdBlock for Firefox is a must, but any others?

Any advice and suggestions are appreciated.
 
purbeast0 said:
I'm just wondering what are some of hte essential things that would be good to install to help the system run smoothly.
Click to expand...

Linux.
oh right, sorry. lol

Everyone has preferences, but here is my list.

1. A solid, well rated AV. Opinions aside, Symantec is usually rated pretty high, i use Norton 360 and like it well, Eset is pretty decent too. Malwarebytes is a good freeware scanner to have along with it and maybe Threatfire which is an AV augment

2. Look into portable applications, i always found Windows to have less troubles when i use portable apps that don't use registry entries and alterations. Theres tons of them out there.

3. Soluto....its a great startup manager, freeware and portable.
CCleaner portable....though its really not a necessity to clean files most of the time, W7 manages things on its own quite well. sometimes it can help depending on situation or if you use low ram, hd.

4. Don't over tweak. Tweaking applications just market based on how many changes they can make...some settings hurt more than they help. W7 handles itself pretty good really by default on most hardware. Performance tweaks are just a die hard habit that sounds good on paper.

5. Acronis True Image.....image backups, a must.

6. Use a VM. This way you can sandbox when testing new software or want to be safer on the net. Sandboxie is a decent freeware app too you can look into

7. try to organise your computing habits, keep it as simple as possible. some of us just have bad user habits....me including sometimes.
 
well, honestly, i was considering linux. i use it at work (right now), however there are some apps that i just don't know if they are available in linux or not. i'm also not too experienced with trouble shooting in linux, or seeing up drivers and stuff like that, so there is some hesitation with that.

thanks for the list though. one thing i HATE about AV software is how bloated it is and how annoying they can get with crap popping in the corner of hte screen about updating, and just the overall slowness they can bring.

it has been a long time since i have actually ran one so i'm not sure if they are stlil like they used to be, but back in the day they were really annoying.
 
purbeast0 said:
... one thing i HATE about AV software is how bloated it is and how annoying they can get with crap popping in the corner of hte screen about updating, and just the overall slowness they can bring.

it has been a long time since i have actually ran one so i'm not sure if they are stlil like they used to be, but back in the day they were really annoying.
Click to expand...

Try http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ It's free, does a good job, nothing popping up, no slowness.
 
Security essentials is solid
Avast is good too
winrar of course

I'm still in a toss up between FF and Chrome myself.
Other than that, honestly I don't install too much on my PCs I guess. Office, a couple of gadgets and that's about it.
 
purbeast0 said:
thanks for the list though. one thing i HATE about AV software is how bloated it is and how annoying they can get with crap popping in the corner of hte screen about updating, and just the overall slowness they can bring.

it has been a long time since i have actually ran one so i'm not sure if they are stlil like they used to be, but back in the day they were really annoying.
Click to expand...

both eset and Norton i have never pop up anything unless they find malware. i can't tell their running on my PC and Norton only scans during long breaks when pc is idle and stops when you do something.

but don't listen to opinion, read some professinal reviews by people who have actually tested each one against a testbed of malware.

top payware AV
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/5927/2011_paid_av.html

top freeware AV
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/5928/2011_free_av.html
 
System_Mechanic said:
both eset and Norton i have never pop up anything unless they find malware. i can't tell their running on my PC and Norton only scans during long breaks when pc is idle and stops when you do something.

but don't listen to opinion, read some professinal reviews by people who have actually tested each one against a testbed of malware.

top payware AV
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/5927/2011_paid_av.html

top freeware AV
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/5928/2011_free_av.html
Click to expand...

If I was going to pay for AV (which I'm not) Eset NOD32 is the only way I'd go (ok I did buy it once for a work laptop)

That being said, I know purbeast knows what he's doing (generally) and Security Essentials or Avast should be fine.
 
FoxFifth said:
Try http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ It's free, does a good job, nothing popping up, no slowness.
Click to expand...

i first thought it was decent when i tried it, but in testing it didnt do well apparently. i'm not using anything that only blocked 64% of a real world attacks

While not terrible, Microsoft Security Essentials lagged behind the top performers in our recent antivirus roundup at detecting malware using traditional scanner-based detection methods
Click to expand...
Security Essentials logged the lowest score in tests to see how well it could block real, live malware attacks. In these real-world attack tests, it completely blocked 64 percent of attacks, and partially blocked an additional 8 percent of attacks. No free antivirus product was able to fully block all attacks, but Comodo scored a 96 percent full-blocking rate.
Click to expand...
 
This is my personal take on the general issue.
--------------------

The differences between the top security suits are minute.

Each one might miss something when tested, but in general they provide similar protection.

The reviewers have to try to make a living like all of us so they have to self generate a lot from close to nothing (I.e., the minute differences).

------------------
As long as a person uses a single computer connected directly to the Internet it does not matter much which one is used.

If you spend time on Computer's Networking Forums you will amazed by the number of users that in order to have a functional LAN and Internet connection have to Uninstall the 3rd party suits, and clean their computers from the residual running processes of the security suits.

The problem of using 3rd party security suits stems from their difficulties (lack of flexibility) to handle variety of Networking situations.

--------------
The First level of protection with Broadband Internet connection is using a Cable/DSL Router, even if the Network is comprised of one computer. The Router's NAT Firewall & SPI providing very good inbound protection. The Router’s WAN side also takes care the ISP connection's authentication, thus keeps the connection always alive.

On each Networked computers running Windows Vista/Win 7 use the Advanced native software Firewall, and install the free Microsoft Security Essentials as AV and Antispyware applications.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

It all working smooth, on both Cable Internet and DSL, maintaining very good Internet/Network security, without adding any cost to each computer.

I configured many computers on peer-to-peer networks with security configured as described above, many of them are Giga LANs, and they all working very well and secure, achieving LAN transfers up to 70MB/sec. (B=Byte).

The only time that I deviate from this, routine is when it is essential to get Visual feedback during Internet/Network activities and actively control any application that tries to connect to the Internet.

In such cases I usually disable Windows native Firewall, and use PCTools Firewall, it is free, small, and minimally intrusive Software Firewall. The download is only 10MB, and the active processes in RAM use about 14MB),http://www.pctools.com/firewall . It flexible pop-up and traffic indication helps to efficiently control the allowed connection list.


😎
 
This is my essential Windows loadout...

Avira
Paint.NET
7Zip
Go-OpenOffice switching to LibreOffice once it's finalized
ImgBurn
InfraRecorder
Audacity
VLC
Foxit Reader
Thunderbird
Foobar2000
Firefox - essential addons - ForecastFox, DownThemAll, FireFTP, Adblock+, DownloadHelper, Stylish, ReloadEvery, SmartBookmarksBar, Personas
 
Manticorps said:
I'd use a site such as http://www.av-comparatives.org/index.php to check out the performance of AV software rather than pcworld.
Click to expand...

they have similar test procedures and similar results, just are scored differently. but even that site showed MS securities only got 52% detection rate.
you can also find links to each others sites so they apparently affiliate.
there is also
AV-Test.org
http://www.virusbtn.com/CheckVir
ICSALABS (certification body)
WestCoastLabs Checkmark
 
System_Mechanic said:
i first thought it was decent when i tried it, but in testing it didnt do well apparently. i'm not using anything that only blocked 64% of a real world attacks
Click to expand...

In all fairness, not even the best AV is that impressive on day zero, when it actually counts: http://www.shadowserver.org/wiki/pmwiki.php/Stats/VirusDailyStats I used to collect malware "hot off the press," did immediate submissions to VirusTotal, and from the results, I feel that antivirus software should not be considered a primary defense, period.

purbeast0, may I suggest deploying Software Restriction Policy: http://www.mechbgon.com/srp Monstrously effective, nearly zero performance impact, no updates or subscriptions required. And I'd also suggest adding EMET 2.0, making sure UAC is enabled, and a few other steps listed here.
 
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thanks for the advice guys, I'm going to do the fresh install pretty soon and will come back to this thread after i have it up and running to take some of the advice on what to get.

i also plan on dual loading my PC and putting Ubuntu on there with Windows. i was talking to someone at my work yesterday about it and he said it should go pretty smoothly being able to dual boot them so I think I'm going to give it a try.
 
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