Worthless programs (venting)

[El Pirata]

Here I just finished downloading Windows XP Service Pack 2 and low and behold there's this nice new Security Center application. Upon it opening, automatically which it immediately lost cool points for that, it showed a few pieces of information. First was that my anti-virus program was up to date something I already knew, more cool points lost. Then it showed that the Windows Firewall was up and running in addition to the time proven Zone Alarm Pro I have been using for years.

Trust me here I've been using Windows long enough to know that their first version of anything really sucks and this new security center is showing all the potential to really screw the pooch. After a few minutes and 2 restarts I was finally able to turn off the Windows Firewall. Their suggestion was to not have 2 firewalls working at the same time so against their recomentation of leaving the Windows Firewall up and shutting down the one I already trusted I ignored that one and left my trusted one up.

It seems like Windows Security Center is a watchdog program that just makes sure you keep your stuff updated. I imagine the next thing to come out for the security center will be a spyware detector, but that'll probably make it's debut in Windows 2008.

While I know there are plenty of people out there that don't update their antivirus, spyware, or firewalls but c'mon give me an option to load a new program.


While I am on a new program I might as well bring up this spam prevention program I installed a few years ago. The name excapes me but the basic gist of the program was that before mail got to outlook express it had to go through this program first. I thought it was a great idea to be able to filter out the spam before it hit my mailbox. After a few sessions I was really liking it, I would open it up, click send/receive then manually have to go through each and every piece of mail with out the benefit of a preview and decide which ones I wanted to filter out. A real labor saving program to manually delete all spam in one program then open up another and let those non spam mails come through that were not deleted.


Sorry to ramble on their guys but I was really steamed when I started this post.

 

[Rolex]

Outlook express has its' own filter. I've been dealing with a mortgage spammer who sends me about 20 a week. Always a different name or @domain, but the exact same Email. "The mortgage you applied for has been accepted." You can't reach them, or get a response from them with a 'reply', but they have a link to click where you can fill in ALL your personal information and send it to them.
With the outlook anti spam, I could block anything with a name, but the names always change, but I could also block it by domain. Most were @Yahoo.cali.com or [email protected], or @yahoo.aus.com. so I blocked anything that they sent me. Now when I open Outlook, I see 3 or 4 emails deleted. It's totally automatic. I don't even know I got it.
What I would prefer, is to have this kind of spam blocked to the point that the sender gets it back as undeliverable, and then THEY have to delete it. Anyone know if there's any such blocker?

 

[WoodiE]

Trust me here I've been using Windows long enough to know that their first version of anything really sucks and this new security center is showing all the potential to really screw the pooch.

Actually you haven't used it long enough to know that this "new" firewall is in fact NOT their first version, Windows XP shipped with their first version of any real firewall and yes it did suck. However believe it or not the firewall in SP2 is actually pretty good, MUCH better then the previous version. With that said, being that you are running Zone Alarm I would stick with ZA over the windows SP2 firewall. The big purpose of the SP2 Firewall is for those that know nothing about security and a SP2 Firewall is better then no firewall at all, however ZA does do a better job and it only takes a matter of seconds to disable the firewall in SP2.

While I know there are plenty of people out there that don't update their antivirus, spyware, or firewalls but c'mon give me an option to load a new program.

You WERE given a choice to load a new program - you made the choice when you downloaded and installed SP2. The majority of the reason SP2 was rolled out was for a security update in the windows xp systems. Every website that talks about SP2 states this as well.


In regards to SPAM - there are a few options you can take. One being increase your spam filter with your ISP if they have the option of doing so. Second you can try to use a 3rd party software that will scan your email before it is displayed or for those of you that are finally ready to jump the microsoft ship you can install Thunderbird (www.mozilla.org) which is an awesome Email client that looks and works a lot like Outlook Express however it has more features - one being a "smart spam filter". I use Thunderbird and really like it, as well as FireFox.


-Michael

 

[wdavidhicks]

My trial period for Norton Anti Virus ran out a couple months ago. When I renewed I opted for the full-boat upgrade with Norton Internet Security. Once that was configured properly (couldn't get it right the first time) it ran great.

Installed XPSP2 a couple weeks ago and after the first reboot Norton IS stepped in and said "Hey, we recommend Norton IS as your firewall. Do you wish to continue using Norton IS and turn off Windows Firewall?" I chose yes.

This article explains the advantages of using Norton. (Of course, it's Symantec's web page.)

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...sf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

If you use Outlook or another easily configurable mail client, the easiest way to dump spam is to create a rule that dumps every piece of mail that's from somebody who ISN'T in your address book into a folder called junk.

 

[Buncrana]

What I would prefer, is to have this kind of spam blocked to the point that the sender gets it back as undeliverable, and then THEY have to delete it. Anyone know if there's any such blocker?

I use MailWasher Pro and you need to set up some keyword filters although a lot of it that comes to you is automatically filtered due to content or sender. It's ok, I still need to click on a few to blacklist and bounce back at them but it only takes a few seconds.