[PLUG] Winders Security Software Recommendations

[Derek Loree]

On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 00:44, Jason Van Cleve wrote:
> Sorry if this is a tad OT, but I need some quick advice from you network admins.  What are the going recommendations for firewall software and virus software, on Windoze boxen.  This is for an extremely end-user demographic--farmers on dial-up, in fact--so it has to be easy to install.  (And hardware firewalls are out, because these people could never be persuaded to buy one.)  Probably around 50% Win98 and 50% XP.
> 
I still have to recommend dial-on-demand floppy routers, the hardware
can be found for next to nothing, and once they are set-up nobody has to
mess with anything.  On a winblowz box, you never know when some popup
will install a server that will get by zonealarm (or disable it).

> I'm thinking Zone Alarm and McAffee, so correct me if that is not up-to-date:  for all I know, XP comes with a firewall.
> 
AVG Anti-virus is free for personal use, it seems to catch about as many
as the pay through the nose programs.  They are a little slower getting
out new definitions, but not much.
 
> I ask on behalf of my father, whose telecom firm resells an ISP service which has been hit hard lately by all the Winvirii.  I've finally convinced him that he needs to block the offending systems until they shape up (which is a real struggle for him as a competing service provider).  But he wants to know what he should suggest to his customers for securing their Winmachines, other than just OS patches and safe email.
> 
HTH,

Derek Loree