Most People Ignore Security Patches, Turn Off Firewalls Says Sophos

[Guest]

Boston (MA) - Most people apparently ignore security updates and turn off their firewalls, according to a new survey by the anti-malware company Sophos.

Most People Ignore Security Patches, Turn Off Firewalls Says Sophos : Read more

 

[photographer]

Anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewalls ? Who needs them ? I have a firewall on my router and I don't browse porn or share files with people I don't know. Haven't had a bug since Y2K. If something were to get onto one of my systems I'd just killdisk the drive and restore my backup.

 

[photographer]

Anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewalls ? Who needs them ? I have a firewall on my router and I don't browse porn or share files with people I don't know. Haven't had a bug since Y2K. If something were to get onto one of my systems I'd just killdisk the drive and restore my backup.

 

[zerapio]

Like photographer, I also rely on my router's firewall. The OS firewall always gets in the way of using your computer. Most viruses these days are installed by users opening attachments or browsing the wrong places. I do keep my browser up to date and install flash updates when they come out.

Last time I had a virus was in 2002. I got infected by opening an html email using IE. After I cleaned the PC I ditched IE for FF. Been clean since.

Antivirus tend to be too aggressive and take too many resources. I may be biased and things may have changed since I last used them. Whenever I need to do a scan I do one online for free.

 

[Guest]

Most firewall programs are more difficult to install and configure for most users than programmers realize. It is rather frustrating to not be allowed to use a web browser or a known safe program needing web access because of your firewall software & not have an intuitive firewall interface to correct the problem. The program feedback and instructions often is lacking at best.

 

[velocityg4]

This is why I use Avast Antivirus and Zonealarm Firewall. The Firewall is fairly intuitive compared to others I have seen "Mcaffee/Norton". Avast Antivirus is just as effective as the big names and uses barely any resources, it runs on a 486 fine. Best of all they are free. Then add firefox and you are secure with maybe a 2% drop in computational speed.

This setup does not effect my computers gaming performance either.

 

[gm0n3y]

I haven't used an anti-virus / anti-malware program in years. When using IE, every once in a while I'd run Adaware or Spybot, but since FF has been getting more and more users almost all sites now work fine with it so IE is becoming useless.

With FF / router Firewall / Gmail (which scans attachments) / Bittorent (instead of P2P) and never opening a file if I don't know what it is, I haven't had a virus in many years.