How many antivirii's can you install?

Completely agree with mohaughn and nihil on this.
And I completely disagree with JP as well.

Regardless of whether you are using dial up or a broadband connection, there is absolutely no harm in running a software firewall and AV scanner on your desktops.
IMHO running more than one software firewall or AV scanner is not a good idea, however.

For a start this will detect unusual outbound activity from the desktop, due to something that snuck through earlier, and infected the PC.
And JP is completely wrong in suggesting that these use significant resources (CPU, memory etc.) nowadays, given the hardware specs of most PCs.

As another point, for home users here in the UK, I always recommend they install a software firewall & an AV scanner.
The vast majority are using Win98 over a dial up connection - no JP, most people here, like the rest of the world do not have broadband or a router ....

With a router it do serves as an firewall protecting the workstation but a software firewall enables a user to know what program accessing the internet by monitoring the outgoing connection, if any suspicious programs(trojan horse, etc) fail to be detected by the antivirus, it will alert the user of all outgoing connections make by the program.

Exactly the point I was trying to make.

Any software firewall would pick up on most of the recent worms, if they had got past whatever other defences you had in place.
Always best to have more than one layer of security, in case your main layer fails.
Some AV scanners also include some of the items mentioned by nihil, such as scanning for suspicious scripts, and alerting you to strange outgoing email activity from a PC.

The combination of these two makes it extremely difficult for a PC to be hijacked without you being aware of it.

Neither Antivirus's or Firewall's are for client side operation. ALL filtering and protection should be done on the server side or on another dedicated box. There should not be software firewalls on every computer in the network and antivirus engines should not be on every local computer. There should be two hardware firewalls, one for the dmz one for the lan, and one antivirus web proxy box. That's it. That is all that you need and you will be plenty secure enough with that running. You will not lose years of cpu cycles to worthless 'home-user' firewalls such as zone alarm and black ice, and to worthless antivirus engines such as norton and mcafee.

So to answer your question, on my work network of three domains and ~400 computers, I run a total of 1 antivirus program on 1 machine and another two firewall boxes that just use iptables.

On my home network of ~10 computers I run 1 iptables firewall machine and 0 antivirus engines.

I can't believe people are still posting replys to this thread!!! :cool:

Quote:

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On my home network of ~10 computers I run 1 iptables firewall machine and 0 antivirus engines.

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Thats great for a network, but primarily we were discussing a standalone desktop or at the most 2-3 computers sharing an internet connection, and not networked together.
In my understanding anyway.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by darkes
I completely disagree with JP as well.

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You can disagree with me all that you want, but I'm right. :booty:

Quote:

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Originally posted here by darkes
For a start this will detect unusual outbound activity from the desktop

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Hardware firewalls do this too. We call them "reverse reflexive access lists". If you're like "most of the people" in the UK as you mention below, and don't have a router or a hardware firewall, or have never used one, and are running windows 98, you would, of course, not know this. Which is a perfect reason why you shouldn't be giving people advice.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by darkes
And JP is completely wrong in suggesting that these use significant resources (CPU, memory etc.) nowadays, given the hardware specs of most PCs.

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No, sorry, I'm right on this one too. I love when people state opinions like they're facts, especially when they have no clue wtf they're talking about. :thumbsup:

Actually benchmarking of systems by those in the industry that do that sort of thing tells the true story. (What's this, benchmarks? You mean JP doesn't just pull all of the advice that he gives out of his ass, and actually bases them on knowledge he garners from keeping track of the industry?) Yes, BENCHMARKS.

Fact!: AntiVirus Software can use from 3% - 19% of your system resources while "auto-protecting" your computer from viruses. (and some of the people in this thread advised installing 2 of them, haha)

Fact!: Software Firewalls for the desktop pc (such as Norton or Mcafee or Zonelabs), can use from 5% - 17% of your system resources, and effect download speeds by over 10%.

Total hit to your system? Between 8% and 36% of your system resources.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Quote:

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Originally posted here by darkes

no JP, most people here, like the rest of the world do not have broadband or a router ....

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Just because the UK is behind the 8 ball when it comes to broadband, don't use that as a yard stick to measure people "in the rest of the world". As a matter of fact, the UK is WAY behind most of the developed world in this regard. Percentage of growth of new broadband lines in the UK for 2003 was behind countries like China, Italy, and even Venezuela for cripe sake! You did managed to beat out Lithuania though. Congrats!

Does everyone have broadband yet? No. Did I give advice in this thread for those that don't have it? Yes. Is the "age of the dial-up" dying, and VERY QUICKLY being replaced by broadband? Yes.

As for most people in the UK still using windows 98. I have no idea how true that is, and I suspect that you don't either.

mohaughn:

I have no gripes with ICF, and it really wasn't what people were bringing up in this thread, which is why I never really addressed it specifically. It's built into the architecture of the OS, and not layered into it, so it doesn't hold true to most of the issues that I've been discussing about "software firewalls".

Another thing that no one has brought up, which kind of surprised me, is a very fundamental of security: The more software you install, the more vulnerability you're opening yourself up to. Each application brings with it baggage, including those designed to bolster security. A perfect example: http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/se...le.php/3354091

I'm loving this argument. People learn a lot more if they start an argument (peaceful one for that matter)

Here are some numbers:

.Broadband Penetration in Select Countries.
Country or Region
Broadband Subscribers
Data Source
and Date

Australia
1,000,000
N/NR - May/2003

Austria
540,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Belgium
869,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Canada
3,600,000
ITU - Dec/2002

China
17,400,000
CNNIC - Dec/2003

Denmark
462,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Finland
274,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Hong Kong
989,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Hungary
260,000
KSH - Dec/2003

Iceland
25,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Japan
7,806,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Korea
10,128,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Netherlands
1,060,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Singapore
392,000
IWS - Dec/2003

Sweden
693,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Switzerland
455,000
ITU - Dec/2002

Taiwan
3,000,000
T.T. - Dec/2003

United Kingdom
3,200,000
Oftel - Jan/2004

U.S.A.
26,200,000
Y.G. - Aug/2003

Sources: (1) International Telecommunications Union (ITU),
(2) CNNIC, (3) Taipei Times, (4) Ofcom, (5) Yankee Group,
(6) Nielsen//NetRatings, (6) KSH .

Quote:

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Some 63.8 million people around the world are now connected to the Internet via DSL, reports DSL Forum, based in Fremont, Calif., a consortium of companies promoting use of the standard. The figures show that DSL attracted 28 million new subscribers during 2003.

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Here u go gentlemen: http://www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art030.htm

From the college student perspective-

When I fixed blaster and sasser, people asked me how they got them. I said it's because they didn't update windows. So I would turn on auto-update for their AV(if they had it) and windows. Problem is, I'm not willing to keep track of all the software they use to make sure its updated and configured to update. In this case, a firewall is necessary to protect what could possibly exploit unupdated software. I'm not going to tell them they need to pay 100 bucks for a hardware firewall when I can have them install a free software firewall and configure it to update itself and work in the background. If I worked for Best Buy, hell yeah I'd try and sell them some stuff. But people don't like spend money on things they don't understand. Besides, we can't have routers in our dorms because we are only supposed to have 1 box per student. The school doesn't offer any firewall beyond our rooms (otherwise we wouldn't have been effected by sasser). Software is the only option for me.

As for resources, I like to keep things running smooth, but I only notice a difference when I'm rendering. Most people don't render, but most people don't run 2.0+ ghz either.

btw-
Hardware firewalls get exploited too.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by JP

Hardware firewalls do this too. We call them "reverse reflexive access lists". If you're like "most of the people" in the UK as you mention below, and don't have a router or a hardware firewall, or have never used one, and are running windows 98, you would, of course, not know this. Which is a perfect reason why you shouldn't be giving people advice.

No, sorry, I'm right on this one too. I love when people state opinions like they're facts, especially when they have no clue wtf they're talking about. :thumbsup:

Actually benchmarking of systems by those in the industry that do that sort of thing tells the true story. (What's this, benchmarks? You mean JP doesn't just pull all of the advice that he gives out of his ass, and actually bases them on knowledge he garners from keeping track of the industry?) Yes, BENCHMARKS.

Fact!: AntiVirus Software can use from 3% - 19% of your system resources while "auto-protecting" your computer from viruses. (and some of the people in this thread advised installing 2 of them, haha)

Fact!: Software Firewalls for the desktop pc (such as Norton or Mcafee or Zonelabs), can use from 5% - 17% of your system resources, and effect download speeds by over 10%.

Total hit to your system? Between 8% and 36% of your system resources.
Just because the UK is behind the 8 ball when it comes to broadband, don't use that as a yard stick to measure people "in the rest of the world". As a matter of fact, the UK is WAY behind most of the developed world in this regard. Percentage of growth of new broadband lines in the UK for 2003 was behind countries like China, Italy, and even Venezuela for cripe sake! You did managed to beat out Lithuania though. Congrats!

As for most people in the UK still using windows 98. I have no idea how true that is, and I suspect that you don't either.

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To reply to some of your points.
wtf is a DMZ hardware firewall worth when someone has just connected an infected portable PC to your internal network?

And, I have worked in this industry for more than 20 years, so I do have some idea what I am talking about ...

I haven't a clue what benchmarks you are using, but the ones I have run show the performance hit at less than 1%, and no affect on download times.

Win98 for home users is a bit of a red herring, as I agree that is a different matter.
btw, perhaps you haven't looked at the MS figures that show Win98 is the most widely used version of Windows across the world.

And, no I don't use Win98 in either a work or home environment ...

I must say, I find your attitude very condescending & insulting, as you are making one hell of a lot of assumptions - like I don't understand the difference between Win98 & the WinNT/XP line and what you should do to harden the system in a work environment - which, yes, does include software firewalls.

I was expecting more from you .....

In return can I say that IMHO you don't know wtf you are talking about either.
Expecting loads of negs for this comment ...

Well, let's put this into context a little?

Quote:

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Just because the UK is behind the 8 ball when it comes to broadband, don't use that as a yard stick to measure people "in the rest of the world". As a matter of fact, the UK is WAY behind most of the developed world in this regard. Percentage of growth of new broadband lines in the UK for 2003 was behind countries like China, Italy, and even Venezuela for cripe sake! You did managed to beat out Lithuania though. Congrats!

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1. There are problems in Europe because of the infamous "dot com" bandwagon or "bubble"..........a lot of providers put a massive amount of their venture capital into these worthless shells, and lost the lot...........this is money that should, by rights, have gone into expanding the infrastructure and obtaining more customers. We are suffering for that!

2. Italy is easily explained, their telcos/ISPs were very greedy on prices so people did not use dial up very much. Most people used the net when they got to work, it was a sort of tax free benefit?....not good for security IMHO :rolleyes: Now that competition has increased, the price has fallen........and that is first hand information from the chief statistician of a northern Italian province. Having these discussions with other European contacts I do not see the infrastructure investment..............just a shower of vultures squabbling over a roadkill........every month I get solicitations to change my telco, gas and electricity suppliers..........still the same providers, just different people billing me?

3. Percentage growth? has anyone heard the phrase "there are lies, damned lies and statistics"? So I have a country with 10 broadband users, next year I have 20............hey that's a 100% increase?

4. At the end of the day, and before the setting of the sun, the rules of the Electronisphere (my word) will be obeyed. With good luck and a following wind, the maximum range of copper wire ADSL/SDSL is 5,500 yards from the telephone exchange. If there has been little usage, the growth statistics will seem very large, but then you will hit the major capital investment barrier? Also, if you have been upgrading your exchanges to fibre optics, but your land lines are copper wire...............DSL won't work..(I guess we like to find these things out the hard way over here:))

I think that more relevant and interesting statistics are number of internet accounts per head of population, and type of connection?

As for WIN98, I do some spare time helping for charitable & non-profit organisations where we provide refurbished computers for old, infirm, educationally challenged and low income people. These are generally donated ex-corporate boxes and we tend to use Win98SE, as that is about the best the hardware can support. So, YES, it is a common operating system in the UK still, as my groups are replicated throughout the Country.

Just a few thoughts

For thoes of you that have more than one antivirus or firewall installed and disagree with jp May seem like alot of work but, Goto www.pcpitstop.com test your box. than uninstall one them and retest, see if your speeds in any area change?

And then let us know. I believe that facts that you can prove are allways best. I can only agree with people like " JP " and most if not all of the senior members becuase they have been doing this for a living and or most of there lives. Me on the other hand can only give people advice for what I know "car audio/video , Electronics - 12volt" becuase thats what I have done most of my adult life, and am now going for my ccna(testing is 6 weeks from now :confused: this is the most I have ever had to study.). Thanks everyone you have definitely made more things clearer for me and I hope others!!!!

sounds like a good way to find out

With avg, norton 2003 AV, and zone alarm 4.5.594

Processor (CPU)
Millions of instructions per second (MIPS) 6067 6122 0.100 612
Memory (RAM)
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 5155 5240 0.100 524
Video 2D
Megapixels per second (MP/sec) 123 137 1.000 137
Disk I/O
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 3 2 1.000 2
Tips
Deduction for red/yellow flags 2 -10 -20
Total Weighted Score 1249 1255


same with out zone alarm


Processor (CPU)
Millions of instructions per second (MIPS) 6067 6124 0.100 612
Memory (RAM)
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 5155 5242 0.100 524
Video 2D
Megapixels per second (MP/sec) 123 137 1.000 137
Disk I/O
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 3 2 1.000 2
Tips
Deduction for red/yellow flags 2 -10 -20
Total Weighted Score 1249 1255


hum not much different IS THIS IS A PROPER BENCHMARK TEST?

now no zone alarm and no avg

Processor (CPU)
Millions of instructions per second (MIPS) 6067 6124 0.100 612
Memory (RAM)
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 5155 5245 0.100 525
Video 2D
Megapixels per second (MP/sec) 123 138 1.000 138
Disk I/O
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 3 2 1.000 2
Tips
Deduction for red/yellow flags 2 -10 -20
Total Weighted Score 1249 1257

Well now i see a difference, about .00159% is that a significant change ?

went to msconfig and turned every thing off

Processor (CPU)
Millions of instructions per second (MIPS) 6067 6124 0.100 612
Memory (RAM)
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 5155 5249 0.100 525
Video 2D
Megapixels per second (MP/sec) 123 137 1.000 137
Disk I/O
Megabytes per second (MB/sec) 3 2 1.000 2
Tips
Deduction for red/yellow flags 2 -10 -20
Total Weighted Score 1249 1256

my oh my I seem to have lost some thing well it may have been the asus software that runs the fans because they all went to full speed and I seem to have lost one point in speed, oh I see it, it looks like killing the nvidia stuff may have slowed down my vid card some.

system is as follows,

Brand/Model System Manufacturer System Name
Type Desktop
Serial Number XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
BIOS Award Software, Inc. ASUS A7V8X ACPI BIOS Revision 1013 08/18/2003
System Board ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7V8X REV 1.xx
Brand/Model AMD Athlon
Nominal Clock Speed 2000 MHz
Measured Clock Speed 2000 MHz
External Clock Speed 133 MHz
CPU Load 0%
Speed Rating 6124 (101% of 10292 similar)
RAM installed 1024 MB
Windows RAM 1024 MB
Total RAM slots 3
Available RAM slots 1
Max RAM module size 1024 MB
Memory Type 512+512+0;DIMM,DRAM,|Synchronous;T16
Speed Rating 5249 MB/s (102% of 10292 similar)
Partition format NTFS
Cluster size 4 KB
Drive label No Label
Size 76308 MB
Free space 68368 MB (90%)
Junk files 45 MB (0%)
Data fragmentation 20%
File fragmentation 12%
Uncached speed 2 MB/s (61%)
Brand/Model NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Resolution 1152x864 pixels
Colors 16 million
DirectX version 5.3.0000000.900 built by: DIRECTX
OpenGL version 5.1.2600.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Acceleration options Enabled
Performance 137.45 MP/s (112% of 805 similar)
Bandwidth Down 1273 Kbits/sec
Bandwidth Up 211 Kbits/sec
Average Ping 52 ms
Ping Loss 0%
TCP Receive Window (default)
External IP Address 0.0.0.0(really didnt think i would did you)
Internal IP Address 0.0.0.0
Browser MSIE 6.0
IE current cache 10 MB
IE max cache 2385 MB
Windows XP SP1
Full Version Windows XP 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1
First Install Sat Dec 20 2003
Free Resources 90%
Fonts Installed 183
Windows Scripting Version 5.6.0.6626
CPU Load 0%
ActiveX Security Issues None
IE Restricted Zone Permissions None
System AMD Athlon, 2000MHz 87% 1000 MHz
Memory 1024 MB 99% 256 MB
Disk 74.52 GB 74% 20 GB

Ok what did this tell me, first I will keep running avg and norton side by side, second I have enough machine to run a bunch of stuff at startup{but I dont, I do a lot of video editing and need my machine to run fast}, third even JP's opinion can be just that; an opinion.
I only have three degrees in comp sci two AS's and a BS but even more importantly I work in the real world, I administer several commercial accounts and two web servers (ick ms2003 boxes), and see dozens of home boxes a week for many years now.

the most important thing, is to keep what ever you run UPDATED

PS if anybody has a better benchmark test let me know I am open to change.

AS the big boss said. install 1 on the box, end of story. I know symantec software has issues running in parallel with other similar objected software like, mcafee. Going ahead and installing loads of this stuff is just asking for bloated up registry!!!

OK YOU ALL ARE THE PROS AND I AM JUST A SCUMBAG, SO SEE YOU ALL SOME OTHER SITE

If one software firewall and one AV is going to slow your computer down enough to have a significant impact on you, it's time for a computer upgrade anyway. As long as you don't get too crazy with the idea and throw a ton of crap on there, you should perform fine, as the performance drop won't be enough to notice. Or so my experience has so far demonstrated, anyway.

So what's up with the egos folks?

I have NIS (anti virus disabled) and Mcafee antivirus on a P233MMX box and it is running fine. No performance problems. By the way, you cant enable both because they both want to hook file system calls. When enabling both (i tried) macfee abends.

Altough i got attacked and infected with that configuration, i think this is one will fit most of the home nets around