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Anti-Virus suggestion

F

filterxg

Senior member
I have a subscription to PC-Cillian 2005, and Zonealarm Security Suite 2005. Between those and the free alternatives (firewall and antivirus) which is the one with the lowest resource rate. I'm not too worried about detection rate, everything seems to be in the same ballpark.
 
I use PC-Cillin 2005 at home, and it seems to have a pretty low consumption of system resources, which is a big plus for me. I ran Norton Antivirus for a while but it always felt bulkier on the system somehow. PC-Cillin just seems a lot more transparent to the rest of the system's performance.
 
My primary AV barrier uses no resources, and in almost two years, no virus has gotten by. That is the Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus service by Postini provided by my ISP. All the crap gets stopped at the POP3 server. My own AV program is a secondary line of defense - but like the Maytag repairmen, it does not have much to do. 🙂

AV
 
Originally posted by: corkyg
My primary AV barrier uses no resources, and in almost two years, no virus has gotten by. That is the Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus service by Postini provided by my ISP. All the crap gets stopped at the POP3 server. My own AV program is a secondary line of defense - but like the Maytag repairmen, it does not have much to do. 🙂

AV
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Your own AV program?

Email worms are used to infect clueless users. I would be more worried about the viruses that use OS exploits, which Postini won't stop. Like Sasser, Blaster, Spybot/Agobot, etc.
 
I have conducted memory tests in the past. AVG 6 free edition (no longer updated) was the lowest, followed by antivir, followed by NOD32. But those 3 were within 10mb of each other, not much of a differance and you will not notice them.
 
Using a <broken record> Limited-class account </broken record> rather than a Computer-Administrator-class account is a zero-performance-impact reinforcement to put your browser, IM proggie and email program in a "safety cage." You might try that out if you're looking to run a "lite" and less-effective antivirus program.

If something won't run right even with a bit of help, you can always right-click it, choose Run As..., and elevate to Admin credentials for that program. Win2000Pro users, hold down the Shift key while right-clicking. Also, in Win2000 what you're wanting is called a "Restricted-User" account.

Tinfoil deflector beanie not included, sold separately 😀
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Using a <broken record> Limited-class account </broken record> rather than a Computer-Administrator-class account is a zero-performance-impact reinforcement to put your browser, IM proggie and email program in a "safety cage." You might try that out if you're looking to run a "lite" and less-effective antivirus program.
Click to expand...

I'm putting that on my to-do list, going to test it out in the next couple of months.

#1 Administrator's worst nightmare - inconsistency. One of my profressors in colleged often used the phrase "if you're going to do something wrong, do it wrong consistently". That way once you discover the problem, you can backtrack it and fix it.

I'm noticing that in the last few years we've been recreating our images too often, and keep making changes to the setup procedure, and users are installing more junk than ever. I've been trying to sell the team on the idea of going to an all-Citrix solution, so the machines have minimal setups and all the administration/updates can be done locally/centrally. But until that happens (probably never), we need to at least get the machines to a consistent state where users have little impact on them on their own.

The problem is we've tried using Power Users years back, and even that didn't have enough permissions to run some of our accounting software so we have to make them full admins. What a tricky mess...
 
Originally posted by: SagaLore
The problem is we've tried using Power Users years back, and even that didn't have enough permissions to run some of our accounting software so we have to make them full admins. What a tricky mess...
Click to expand...

I know about this. Some applications that are in use at the vocational school on my college's campus refuse to run in limited accounts (in windows 2000). They require full admin rights, the place was a nightmare for those of us working with the college's IT staff. We usually have all clients running in Limited and the ones we do, have no problems, but the ones that dont............ well lets just say it gets messy before we finally slap the limited account on there.
 
What about... (haven't tried this myself yet) ...using Group Policy to allow only your specified Windows apps to run? You could make a list. Solitaire... ok. Pinball... ok. Word... ok. Bonzi Buddy... uh, NOT OK. 😛 Just a notion, like I say I haven't tried that since I can get away with 100% RU's here (me included).
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
What about... (haven't tried this myself yet) ...using Group Policy to allow only your specified Windows apps to run? You could make a list. Solitaire... ok. Pinball... ok. Word... ok. Bonzi Buddy... uh, NOT OK. 😛 Just a notion, like I say I haven't tried that since I can get away with 100% RU's here (me included).
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with any group policies that handle a list like that. Software installation, yes, but software permissions, haven't run across that.
 
Drill down to

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System. In the root of System is Run only allowed Windows applications. I've seen it, never tried it. Gimme a holler if it proves to be paydirt 🙂
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Drill down to

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System. In the root of System is Run only allowed Windows applications. I've seen it, never tried it. Gimme a holler if it proves to be paydirt 🙂
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be helpful in prevent malware from installing:

This setting only prevents users from running programs that are started by theh Windows Explorer process. It does not prevent users from running programs such as Task Manager, which are started by the system process or by other processes. Also, if users have access to the command prompt, Cmd.exe, this setting does not prevent them from starting programs in that command window that they are not permitted to start by using Windows Explorer.
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I use Norton with the system in my signature. I really haven't encountered a lot of problems. Although for client's I recommend Avast.
 
It wouldn't be helpful in prevent malware from installing.
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Agreed. I meant that for your particular situation it might help prevent employees from running non-company software like IM programs or whatnot.
 
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Your own AV program?

Email worms are used to infect clueless users. I would be more worried about the viruses that use OS exploits, which Postini won't stop. Like Sasser, Blaster, Spybot/Agobot, etc.
Click to expand...

Exactly - Postini has stopped every one of them cold. Nothing has come through. But - Viruscan 9 is waiting patiently for the day one does.

 
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