some months ago, there was a thread which had something to do about virus's etc - and watso half recalls that some posters scoffed at anti virus stuff etc etc.
watso mostly uses linux, and has never bothered with firewalls (well, watso does activate the firewall, but never sees anything), anti virus etc etc - well let watso assure everybody, that if you are using windows, then make sure that you have a firewall, and a good anti virus program (or programs). - watso has spent a week, sorting out his computer, after his computer was hijacked (mmm - obviously while using windows on the odd occasion) ... the first that watso knew about it, was when he was disconnected from web, and upon inquiry, was advised that too much spam was coming from watso's computer. ok - not a problem so watso tries to rectify things, - watso cannot recall what happened next (as so much happened), but watso got disconnected again - ie too much spam .. somewhere along the line, there was a message from the firewall, that there was a keylogger on the computer.. - some nasty thing had got into the external hard drive, which watso simply left connected, so when he installed anti virus, and firewall, his computer was already infected
eventually watso figured out that the problem was the external hard drive - so he disconnected that - then used linux to format his hard drives, and then used linux to download firewalls, anti virus, and stored them on a flash drive - then installed a clean install of windows, then installed a firewall and anti virus, then scanned the external drive - and the whole lot went belly up - as the whole computer system crashed (must have been a battle of the titans - virus against anti virus) - after which watso could not reinstall windows (lucky that "live" linux systems still functioned)- whenever watso tried to reinstall windows, the system repeatedly crashed - ok, in the end it seems that the bios was corrupted, and lucky for watso, the easiest solution worked (pull out the lithium battery, and short some of the pins) - and then watso could reinstall windows
moral of the story - if using windows, make sure you use a firewall and anti virus. for most internet use, why not use a fast linux system (watso uses puppy linux) - and there will be no problems) - watso only used windows to be able to use google earth - and there are some windows based programs that watso likes, which could function without disconnecting from the internet, but it is simply easier to leave the computer connected all the time
frankly, watso finds windows to be too slow to load up etc etc - because firewalls, anti virus etc have to be loaded up at boot up.. for what it is worth, watso uses sygate as his firewall (there must be something better), and avg, with threatfire as the anti virus
