Still use Netscape. Can't say for sure about its potential for problems. It will be interesting to see what others here have to say about NS.

Firefox seems to be the buzz word browser now. Look through the threads here in Tech Talk and you will see it discussed more than once.

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As far as other security measures, always have an up to date Anti-Virus running as well as a software firewall, such as Zone Alarm. If you want to try McAfee, they offer packages that include Anti-Virus, Personal Firewall and Anti-Spyware as well as Spam Blocker. Zone Alarm also offers a comparable package.

Anti-Virus, firewall, anti-spyware, spyware scanner. Make sure you have all of those loaded and active and keep them updated. That's a good place to start.

Oh yeah, I love Best Buy.

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You are the 2nd person to recommend Firefox and Opera ... I'll try one. Comcast offers MCAfee software including the firewall free ... I'll try that and see if I feel comfy shutting down the Norton and Spyware Doctor that I renewed recently (they have kept me out of trouble).

Thanks for the help .... I like BestBuy but Home Depot is my favorite place to shop.

dicknjane

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There's nothing preventing you from downloading a different browser and using that instead.

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Windowsupdate.com is probably the best way to prevent infections. keep the computer updated and you will be fine. Backup the important data every month!

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This is easily enough remedied by going into" preferences" and changing the font settings to suit one's taste.

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I use Roboform that fills forms & passwords (and depend on it extensively).I have a zillion passwords to all kinds of sites.
It does not work with Firefox despite my downloading an adapter. The adapter put the Roboform toolbar on the Firefox home page-BUT when I open a site that needs a password-I am unable to click the "fill forms" button-it's there but unclickable.
I am describing this in simple lay terms-hope it makes since.
Why is Firefox better than IE?

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I use firefox for all of my browsing and only use IE for Windows Update or particular sites that refuse to work properly under firefox.

Anything from Microsoft instantly has a hacker's bullseye on it. So I doubt any version of IE will be totally secure, even version 7 when it comes out.

If you practice safe browsing (watch where you to and watch what you click), regularily run windows update (or microsoft update) and have decent virus and firewall software you can be safe using IE.

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I think it's overrated. I've had my machine brought to its knees by indiscriminately downloading and then applying several updates.

I suppose if you're careful about picking and choosing the updates to be applied, you'll be okay. I stopped downloading updates over a year ago, and I've been doing just fine.

I'm on a cable modem through a router (which acts as a firewall), and I use both AVG Antivirus (the freeware edition) and Spybot. I run regular scans, and I've been virus and adware free for ages. I also check my Tasklist once in a while to make sure I'm not running any rogue EXEs

I surf porn sites about once a week, and I get occasional alerts my AVG software about viruses.

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At any rate, I manually check for Windows updates and only download those that I think I need, as opposed to what Microsoft wants me to have, whether I need them or not.

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When I was going through my problem solving a very knowledgeable tech from SBC advised considering Linux software which seems impervious to hacking and adware. Does anyone have any experience?

I am a little concerned that Windows XP OS has had registry errors each week since I converted when Norton does the weekly scan. For a dummy like me these things are a concern. Everything seems to be running ok though and my download speeds are consistently between 5 and 6 MBPS which is good for my Pentium III/512mb DRAM system. I appreciate the advice here and think people here all do pretty much similar surfing and deal with the same threats. Thanks.

dicknjane

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I also don't think they work well with Norton and Spyware Doctor and the programs start causing problems for one another to fix.

This really shouldn't be a problem with Norton. I'm not familiar with Spyware Doctor so I don't know how much interaction they have with M$ for insuring their software plays nice with XP.

When I was going through my problem solving a very knowledgeable tech from SBC advised considering Linux software which seems impervious to hacking and adware. Does anyone have any experience?

Linux is great at what it does, but it requires more techie skills than Windows. However, if you've got another computer to install it on then go ahead and give it a try. In theory, Linux should be safer because the source code is available to everyone, which means that there's a lot more opportunity for people to find and report security holes so they can be fixed. In reality, no system is impervious to hacking unless it's off the net completely.

I am a little concerned that Windows XP OS has had registry errors each week since I converted when Norton does the weekly scan. For a dummy like me these things are a concern.

I suggest you download CCleaner and see if running it fixees your registry problems. Also, M$ used to have utility that would fix the Windows registry. I have no idea if there's one for XP, though.

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Thanks .. hardware ... you are the expert you know .... the rest of us are pretty well not and in my crowd they think I know stuff .... it doesn't take much to be smarter than the next dummy.

dicknjane

Edited by - dicknjane on 3/7/2006 5:56:23 PM

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As for these errors being recurring, if they really are the same errors then this suggests an application is behaving badly. You'd need to dig into the Registry to find where these errors are to track down the rogue program. Or, if you're lucky, Norton may have those details in its report.

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dicknjane

Edited by - dicknjane on 3/10/2006 1:31:45 PM

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You can find a lot of pornstar pics at FreeOnes. They also have links to other sites where you can find pics, though you'll quickly find that there's a lot of round-robin links between these types of sites.

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