FREE I.T. advices! Surfing internet, irc chatting.

[Ethanas]

I've seen many people asking for some help what-so-ever on IT problems.

Therefore I'm setting this thread up to answer some basic FAQs on some questions regarding surfing of internet, protections and answer other questions bro will ask.

FAQ v1

Protections (firewall, anti virus and such)

Antivirus: common ones McAfee, Norton, Trend. Most anti virus are pretty robust and includes real time protections.
However if you are badly infected and certain virus actually prevent your antivirus from working (ie shutting it down) you have to do a drastic recovery. If you have Windows XP, and you have set the OS to set recovery points once every week/mth, you can probably save some serious pain in reinstalling. Just set your windows back to the recovery point that is b4 you encounter the problem and then run the anti virus you should be fine.

Firewall: FOR THE PARANOID. I'm assuming here that most of you bros are using PC in a mostly home environment. If it is so, you basically do not need a personal firewall. If bros wanna feel safer then turn on your WinXP SP2 firewall. Common FREE ones Zone Alarm, Tiny, WinXP SP2 inbuild. Basically a firewall will close most common ports until they are in need. However personal firewall will NEVER be able to block most persistant hackers. Some IT security people will suggest to use firewall for defense of ID theft. BUT personally I believe having a spy ware scanner will be a better options.

Spyware/adware Scanner/remover: Basically spyware is the up and comming menace after virus. they are tools for ID theft. Most record your online habit, malicious one records your keystrokes. Most are installed onto your pc by "drive by" install through microsoft's window loophole in ActiveX and Java scripts. Spyware scanner will actually detect this if you runs them weekly. Recommented Spyware scanner: Spybot S & D.

Thats all for now bros. will add more in the future. Hope this short FAQ will help bros and make surfing sites like Sammyboy more enjoyable.

Question please.

[nuclearkid]

Just to share with fellow forumers, AVG provides pretty decent free antivirus protection with regular updates. Here it is:

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

[cereal-killer]

you can try AntiVir as well , works well for me and it is always updated.

in some sites when i am surfing, i get warning of trojan but in my office's computer using "other reputable" titles, it tells me NOTHING.

so, Antivir is the way to go for me

www.free-av.com

Best Part is, ITS FREE

[rahl]

Good work bro.

However I wont say firewall is only for the paranoid. With all the viruses and backdoor trojans going around, firewall is the first line of defense.

And those downloading from p2p, firewall is a defense against snoopers from riaa, the movie industry.

But right, spyware is irritating and potentially harmful. Add some other *free* spyware detectors here:

Lavasoft Adware
Spybot Search and Destroy
Spyware Blaster
CWShredder

[hokkienguy]

Originally Posted by rahl

Good work bro.

However I wont say firewall is only for the paranoid. With all the viruses and backdoor trojans going around, firewall is the first line of defense.

And those downloading from p2p, firewall is a defense against snoopers from riaa, the movie industry.

But right, spyware is irritating and potentially harmful. Add some other *free* spyware detectors here:

Lavasoft Adware
Spybot Search and Destroy
Spyware Blaster
CWShredder

Spybot Search and Destroy not bad too me using Spybot and Microsoft anti spy

[Randi_Candi]

Brudda Ethanas........got a toughie for u
Perhaps u could advise some of the bruddas here who are not able to log-in to SBF or use MSN/Yahoo IMs to try to reduce idle banter and .......
Some of the bruddas had the main SBF address banned by their IT experts and uses a link to gain entry......how about any other ways?

[Ethanas]

Originally Posted by Randi_Candi

...Some of the bruddas had the main SBF address banned by their IT experts and uses a link to gain entry......how about any other ways?

ok I will try to answer this one.

Some company controls their employee's usage of the internet. Thus a standing access lists on their company firewall allows only a few addresses to be accessed. If this is the case, which seems likely, then there is nothing you can do unless the IT admin actually allows the address url. Therefore convince the IT admin or psycho them to join this forum to enjoy the wonderful world of SBF maybe then they will allow it.

Another possible reason for this is blockage is, the company detected some ppl actually surf the webpage, and find it takes up too much of the bro's time thus affects productivity and just block the forum's url directly. To solve this.. have someone do shell to another external server and use the shell to access the webpage. how to do this? hehe too long to explain lah, pm me if you need infos.

Disclaimer: all this will probably violates your company security policies, if you value your jobs, then I suggest don't do it. Surf from home when u got time.

[Randi_Candi]

Originally Posted by Ethanas

ok I will try to answer this one.

Another possible reason for this is blockage is, the company detected some ppl actually surf the webpage, and find it takes up too much of the bro's time thus affects productivity and just block the forum's url directly. To solve this.. have someone do shell to another external server and use the shell to access the webpage. how to do this? hehe too long to explain lah, pm me if you need infos.

Disclaimer: all this will probably violates your company security policies, if you value your jobs, then I suggest don't do it. Surf from home when u got time.

Haha......thx for the goot reply.......
I thk alot of people wun try it cos the ricebowl is 2 precious

Alternatively I used to have my own dialup and nowadays most of the pcs cum with integrated modem.
So just hook on the modem and dial directly thru......then I guess u would not be going thru the company's firewall??

[seacher]

Originally Posted by Randi_Candi

Brudda Ethanas........got a toughie for u
Perhaps u could advise some of the bruddas here who are not able to log-in to SBF or use MSN/Yahoo IMs to try to reduce idle banter and .......
Some of the bruddas had the main SBF address banned by their IT experts and uses a link to gain entry......how about any other ways?

use firefox and get the extention of virtual browser to get into sb
think it will work

[Ethanas]

Originally Posted by seacher

use firefox and get the extention of virtual browser to get into sb
think it will work

Nah, if firewall's core access list blocked all sites, i.e deny any host any destination on port 80 and accept only listed destinations on the same port. Any traffic to sites other than listed will be blocked.

there are of coz ways to go around it, troublesome though.

Originally Posted by Randi_Candi

..So just hook on the modem and dial directly thru......then I guess u would not be going thru the company's firewall??

yeah this will work.

[CaptainPlanet]

Im currently using Ad Aware that has got Ad-Watch..
But it seems to be interfering wif my norton..
I personally dun prefer SpyBot
So any better alternatives??

[rahl]

Originally Posted by CaptainPlanet

Im currently using Ad Aware that has got Ad-Watch..
But it seems to be interfering wif my norton..
I personally dun prefer SpyBot
So any better alternatives??

Dont run Ad-Watch, bro. I find it interferes with surfing.

I suggest you keep Spybot - there are commercial software around, but I have heard some will *introduce* spyware into your system so as to have a higher rate of detection.

Can try Spyware Blaster or Browser Hijack Blaster - both are spyware blockers that can run in place of Ad-watch.

[Ethanas]

Originally Posted by CaptainPlanet

Im currently using Ad Aware that has got Ad-Watch..
But it seems to be interfering wif my norton..
I personally dun prefer SpyBot
So any better alternatives??

Ad Aware doesn't work very well, yes it detects spyware, but it doesn't do a good job cleaning.

Try Spyguard or spyware blaster if you want to. Personally I find Spybot pretty good and though not total it does a pretty good job on registry protection too.

Since I'm pretty verse on OS and registry editing those that spybot points to me and it can't clean I can manually delete them from registry myself. But if you are not too good at it, dun mess with your system registry. Screw ups means reinstall hor, unless you are using XP then screw up means u have to restore to last save point.

One thing to note about norton, I'm assuming u are using Norton Antivirus? Becareful then, Norton goes into a fit when you run other apps that crash with it. which is pretty much lots of other security softwares. hahaha. Which is why my home PCs all 8 of them are using McAfee.

[tittyhawk]

Originally Posted by Randi_Candi

Brudda Ethanas........got a toughie for u
Perhaps u could advise some of the bruddas here who are not able to log-in to SBF or use MSN/Yahoo IMs to try to reduce idle banter and .......
Some of the bruddas had the main SBF address banned by their IT experts and uses a link to gain entry......how about any other ways?

Maybe I will use my IT experiences to answer your queries...

If a website is banned, that means the network admin has block that particluar address from access. The internet address is determined by DNS and follow by subnet submasks (in its most simple and generalize definition)...If the administrators are hardcore guys, they would banned the entire sub-addresses. If they banned the DNS, you still able to access provided you know how to bypass your own network filtering scripts. The network scripts are a set of command lines, usually in UNIX or Lynix, which controls your workstation's access, both local and outward bound routes.

Just my thoughts....

[Ethanas]

Originally Posted by tittyhawk

Maybe I will use my IT experiences to answer your queries...

Just my thoughts....

Mai liddat leh, give away our trade secret. hehe