Hi....C.J. here!!! Remember me...and I there was I thinking that this was going to be a thread about computers in my language!

You've all totally lost me' date=' so I'm going to read some books on the subject instead.[/quote']

Don't laugh.

I have have a whole CD of computer related books for you to read:D

Don't laugh.

I have have a whole CD of computer related books for you to read:D

books...what books?

they will keep him quiet for a while

Probably get bored after the first page and come back on here....for some peace...I'm in trouble yet again. :thumbdwn:

Disagree.

If patching was the definitive answer' date=' why develop and implement such a feature.......oh, that's right, because it take MS a few weeks/months to recognise and develop patch.........[/quote']

But they DO develop it. I didn't say patching was the definitive answer. It's the right answer, though. Remove the vulnerability, rather than try to work things around it.

The notion that AV stops the infection - well, the mere fact it's been able to quarantine it clearly shows it hasn't. Containment is very[/b'] different from prevention. See Iraq/Saddam as an object lesson......... .........

This doesn't make sense.

Also, your view that McAfee is a pile of doggie doo-doo.........on what basis do you make this judgement? .........

Probably on the same basis you've made your judgment on Norton. Each to their own.

With a massively technical installed base here' date=' and being former Norton AV Clients, with Norton coming with evey single PC we buy, we unload it ASAP, as it creates no end of hardware slow-down and conflicts with local and network hardware. If anything, unless we're talking home-user material/ very limited funds, Norton is the odious smear of faeces on the sole of my shoe...

.........[/quote']

Well, actually, we ARE talking about home-user. If I was going to recommend an enterprise antivirus product, I'd recommend Sophos. Which is better than Norton and FAR better than McAfee.

Again' date=' this is purely my own professional experience. If Norton works for you, great. But don't dismiss others choices and opinions as heavily and as quickly as "McAfee is a pile of $h1te".........[/quote']

I try to give people a little more credit for making their own judgements on products. "...McAfee is a pile of $h1te..." is obviously my own opinion of it. If someone else wanted to try it for themselves, I wouldn't stop them. My comments, in no way inferred anything of the kind.

My 2p worth.

Firewalls and anti-virus software are about DIFFERENT aspects of the security problem. Firewalls are there to protect you from real-time attacks, anti-virus is there to guard against (usually) slow-time infections contained in files, whether as email attachments or downloads from the web.

Firewalls, even those that do SPI, can't really act as anti-virus protection. Likewise, AV software can't be monitoring all incoming network traffic. So they complement each other. Those of us with any sense, have both.

I've found that since I have had a hardware firewall, and I'm still running ZoneAlarm on the PC, the amount of incoming traffic blocked by ZA is pretty negligible, but not nil. Must have a look at the ports involved and work out why they're getting through the firewall...

Viruses seem to be down recently too, but I don't really connect the two things.

Spyware is mainly connected with web browsing, so comes straight through your firewall on an open port. Some AV software will pick up some of it, but on the whole, you've allowed it in, by using a browser, and enabling scripting on web pages that you visit. Your internet experience would be fairly severely crippled these days if you browse with scripting disabled, so most people have it enabled. A lot of AV software attempts to trap script viruses, but with limited success in my experience.

McAfee vs Norton? Just two brand names with a fairly equal presence in the market. Each has their faults, but pretty solid products on the whole, methinks.

Firewalls and anti-virus software are about DIFFERENT aspects of the security problem.

Agreed - however, I've run a computer outside of a firewall, and within a matter of minutes it was shafted. Couldn't hold a network connection and kept restarting. Had lots of spyware too, and this was all without actually *using* the computer...was just logged in to W2K.

Now, my anti-virus has *never* detected a virus while behind a firewall, yet my machines keep on running for years.

So if my anti-virus isn't even picking up viruses, yet my computer grinds to a halt within minutes without a firewall, it suggests to me that a firewall is more important. Or that my AV isn't very good...dunno, it's Symantec Corporate, and I thought it was supposed to be pretty decent.

Rob.