Freeware security was a solution – once upon a time…..

Moderator Freeware security was a solution – once upon a time…..

 

What the problem is, is that professional polls were conducted recently (2008) and it is discovered that a large percentage of users thought they were protected – but in reality were not. THAT IS ALARMING !

The simple knowledge actually is that in the basic computer system security – viruses were invented. So the next logical step was to invent something to destroy or eradicate of safely quarantine and remove them as unwanted installations that are dangerous to computers. Of course that was in the 1990’s. Today, they are more sophisticated and are able to perform much more than simply destroying files or parts of the operating system (Windows).

With the antivirus industry in full swing at currently counted just over one million viruses now (2008) they have what is called heuristics and is real time protection. What ? That means not just scanning email. It means when you are browsing the internet, there are all sorts of viruses at all sorts of bad websites – or “malicious content websites”. When you hit the bad website and a virus launches to infect the computer system – antivirus software programs immediately quarantine the virus (and most trojans).

The difference between email viruses and viruses on the world web are your email itself – and also your files. With email and files, antivirus will attempt to “clean” the virus from the email or file to preserve the email or file content for the User. This works virtually always, as the industry has come a long way and are obviously more sophisticated then “e-street thugs”.

But with malicious websites – the virus (and most trojans) are just that – and have not touched anything on the computer yet being stopped dead in their tracks by the antivirus software program. There are no files to clean. With a malicious download as a software secretly infected intentionally with a virus, again it will try and clean that to protect the intended installation. Sometimes, as cyber crime is tricky anymore, it is just a bogus fake software anyway and you would get the antivirus program pop up “Can not Clean the File” and you simply delete it – if there was an installer downloaded to like “My Documents” or other destination (folder of your choice). And too, if it is in the antivirus program “Quarantine Folder” , in that case, it would generally be in the Temporary Files of the system and is not any actual file on the computer per se except the actual temporary files folder entry. If you would see that extension as part of the file name infected on the quarantined item – you just click Delete. It is no software at all – just malware (virus).

But there is only one way to do the above….. you have to have Real Time Protection. This is not available in free home versions (freeware) . You have to pay for it (shareware). Generally for just antivirus, it has been about 35 dollars (US) yearly. Now the free versions (and this is all basically the same with the antispyware programs – just different threat, malwares) will scan the computer, detect threats, and react appropriately as to whether quarantining for User action (attempt clean or just delete) or deleting trojans. Trojans are a like their own little program to do and control stuff as opposed to a virus infecting – merging into a file. Antivirus will always delete a trojan because there is nothing to clean to salvage. A trojan is malicious malware period.

 

EXAMPLE… of why free protection is worthless:
SEE
Security software disabler Trojan
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/security_software_disabler_Trojan.html

The bottom line is to reiterate (say again) that it was just fine to use the free versions and they do great, but….. The problem and inconvenience used to be getting “hit” while browsing and everything was messed up, and you had to stop everything you were doing to scan the computer for threats to remove the bastard. Very, very time consuming. And you couldn’t do anything else until the system and files were cleaned and safe to use again – or you knew you were risking the spread of its intent – whether a virus or spyware.

So, said all that to say this – to reiterate that today’s malwares and their creators and the cyber criminals behind them have become very, very, very sophisticated. They can easily – in the blink of an eye – totally infect the system unprotected (no real time protection) and now have the ability to disable free security softwares and go further to restrict access to the Windows Registry and other navigation functions like Task Manager with the intent to block the User from attempting to manually remove the malwares (delete their files and registry entries by hand in Windows Explorer and Registry).

So my whole point is as webmaster of www.BlueCollarPC.Net and our groups and lists and forums – I am engaged to warn new and intermediate users that this is simply NOT an option anymore – the freewares as your Security Solution.

Did I make that point well enough ? Even though this is a brief one page writing….

Happy and Safe Computing
www.BlueCollarPC.Net and the dial up friendly www.BlueCollarPC.Org

 

NOW you can read this article to make informed choices…. don’t forget – the free versions are great as back ups and may discover what others miss. Just remember they do not protect the computer – they attempt to clean it.

 

Article For Reference…..

Build your own free security suite
http://www.networkworld.com/nlsecuritynewsal156270 
Do-it-all suites are the name of the security game these days. Sure, you
can gather free programs that cover the bases much as a suite
would, but who wants to bother with finding out which apps work
together and which ones might leave you pulling your hair out?

 

Tags: antispyware, antivirus, freeware, security, trojan