Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Geek Speak => Topic started by: paul.fr on 05/10/2007 14:43:31
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How good is the firewall that comes bundled with vista? Should i get another "just to be safe". Also does anyone reccomend a good antivirus programme that is vista compatable?
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Are you connected through a router or just DSL modem?
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Are you connected through a router or just DSL modem?
all three are through a router, two on xp and one with vista.
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Then you should be OK with the bundled firewall.
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Cheers Doc, i do like to have lots of security!
One quick q, if i may. where is the "run" facility in vista? I only got the machine yesterday and it is loading too many things at startup. How and where do i configure these to not run at startup in vista?
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Control panel -> Change start up programs
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"If you don't buy windows vista, we'll kill this dog"
Love that slogan!
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Make sure you get the Vista upgrade that actually works properly. It's called Linux!
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If you want to buy vista then the cheapest way is to buy it and download it from sites in the USA as its half the price compared to the UK.
You can get Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit COMPLETE for £88 which is cheap,very cheap.
However i dont like vista its crap and i prefer XP.
Also the windows firewall isnt good enough and i wouldnt trust the Vista 1 either.
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I have not had anything to do with Vista to date - too much bloatware - would require a more powerful machine, which then consumes more power, and generates more heat (as it is, it can get hot in the summer with all my computers switched on, and these days when I put together a computer I try and look at power consumption and heat output as one of the criteria). Then again, I suppose if you are heavily into games, you would be looking for a lot of heat generation from your computer anyway.
My experience of XP is that if you already have NATing (as you almost certainly would have if you are using a router), then the built in firewall has little benefit (I have zonealarm installed, since critically that moniotored outbound traffic as well as inbound traffic).
As for anti-virus - the first question is whether you are using 32 bit or 64 bit vista? Don't know for sure about vista, but for XP, support for 64 bit was somewhat more restricted (why I went back to 32 bit - although the problem was more with printer drivers than with anti-virus).
I would think that all of the current anti-virus software that works on XP should work of Vista (may not have done in the first few months of vista, but should do by now). My own preference (and I know a good few who are happy with it) is AVG, but the lack of 64 bit support when I was playing with XP64 meant that I install Avast on that. Both are free downloads.
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Micky - that's why I asked about a router. If using just a DSL modem I would certainly advise more than just the Windows firewall. But routers have good firewalls in them anyway so adding another is pretty much superfluous.
As for anti-virus, I too use Avast.
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Micky - that's why I asked about a router. If using just a DSL modem I would certainly advise more than just the Windows firewall. But routers have good firewalls in them anyway so adding another is pretty much superfluous.
As for anti-virus, I too use Avast.
Hardware firewalls and software firewalls serve two subtly different functions.
Certainly, in terms of blocking inbound ports to prevent hackers getting in, they are both doing roughly the same job; but where a software firewall (such as ZoneAlarm, but not the built in XP firewall) does a job that a hardware firewall cannot do is to track outbound traffic. This is important not so much in blocking hackers from getting into your machine, but in helping detect them if by chance they have got in. It monitors every program that is trying to make an outside connection, and if any program that should not be trying to make an outside connection tries to do so (possibly because it has become infected by a virus), it will notify you. Since a hardware firewall cannot monitor individual programs, it cannot perform this task.
Where hardware firewalls (not simple NATing, but more sophisticated firewalls) really excel is in protecting against packet spoofing and denial of service attacks (even they are not immune to such attacks, but software firewalls will not even begin to cope with these threats).
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I've got a program that hides my ports & another that monitors outgoing traffic. They're not firewalls as such, they just deal with the ports.
I've got another that keeps a metaphorical eye on the registry & informs me if an unauthorised program tries to alter it.
On top of that, I've got a few progs that run at startup and/or shutdown & check for system/registry changes. I get a list of changes and if there are any I don't recognise I can undo those specific changes. I have to manually say which changes to undo but it's a lot better than having to roll back the whole system & losing any legitimately installed software.
It takes me a few extra clicks to install stuff, but I think it's worth it. I've had no malware for almost 2 years now.
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Macos 10.4 is pretty solid!
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dont get vista, it has verry little backwards compatability, it is very slow and takes up more than 2 times RAM we have now, stick with XP.
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dont get vista, it has verry little backwards compatability, it is very slow and takes up more than 2 times RAM we have now, stick with XP.
That's the most sensible recommendation since I mentioned Linux
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but have you ever lived with Macos?
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but have you ever lived with Macos?
Not recently
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but have you ever lived with Macos?
Is not the current Macos just a variant of Linux?
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Did u mean Macantosh, or Macos, i've never heard of Macos, and I am one of the many that perfer PCs
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Is it possible to buy a new laptop with XP instead of Vista? If so, I haven't found a way to do it. Or should I just suck it up, quit bi***** about it and deal with Vista?
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I never wanted vista, but my new laptop came with it. I think its great, but i do like shiney, sleek sexy things. Thanks by the way to all who have contributed here, i was not aware that 3rd party av and spyware software had become vista ready.
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Is it possible to buy a new laptop with XP instead of Vista? If so, I haven't found a way to do it. Or should I just suck it up, quit bi***** about it and deal with Vista?
At present, Microsoft have said several times they will stop allowing XP to be shipped with new computers, and several times have been forced to relent - so at least some manufacturers are still shipping their machines with XP.
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I never wanted vista, but my new laptop came with it. I think its great, but i do like shiney, sleek sexy things. Thanks by the way to all who have contributed here, i was not aware that 3rd party av and spyware software had become vista ready.
I looked at a few laptops last week with Vista. The one I'm leaning towards is very shiny, sleek and sexy and the graphics were incredible! That's what I'll probably go with, but I do tend to be afraid of things I'm not familiar with.
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Is not the current Macos just a variant of Linux?
Rather based on a form / subset of Unix.
No one ever tried to sell Linux on the basis that it looked nice and was a joy to use.
It is popular with cogniscenti rather than 'users'. It's none the worse for that but that is how it is different from Macos.
I ran red hat linux for a while, after installing it in an elderly Power Mac but it was too much like hard work to make it a lifestyle.
I hope Vista is an advance on XP. The Windows thing is heading in the right direction, I think.
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Is not the current Macos just a variant of Linux?
Rather based on a form / subset of Unix.
No one ever tried to sell Linux on the basis that it looked nice and was a joy to use.
It is popular with cogniscenti rather than 'users'. It's none the worse for that but that is how it is different from Macos.
I ran red hat linux for a while, after installing it in an elderly Power Mac but it was too much like hard work to make it a lifestyle.
I hope Vista is an advance on XP. The Windows thing is heading in the right direction, I think.
Linux is a variant of unix. Linux is not defined by its user interface, but by its kernel (otherwise it is merely a set of GNU utilities); and I thought the Mac OS kernel was Linux (or are you saying that Mac are using a kernel based on AT&T code?).
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The Apple literature refers to Unix, is all I can say.
When I use Unix commands (in my sad, limited way) they seem to work.
And, yes, Linux isn't an interface and it is the interface that affects the user most as long as the operating system works ok.
As usual, this thread is pointing in a number of different directions at once!
What I have always liked about the Mac interface is that, as you move from version to version - even since the early nineties - the basic way of working is the same and it doesn't bug you with details.
Let's face it; how many users are even aware of what they're doing when they open a file or edit it in some way?
Actually, there could be a very fruitful thread, discussing what people actually think they are doing when they use a computer and where the 'brain, actually resides. I feel one coming on.
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Having looked up various Wiki pages, it seems that the MacOS is based on NeXTStep (which itself is based on the mach kernel) and FreeBSD, but not Linix.
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well,
Vista has more security features built into it along with some frameworks for developers ( like microsoft IIS, .net framework, etc) and it has a complete new user interface called 'aero' which makes it slower and slower....
The best solution is to stick with XP if you already have one.
Or else if someone is really looking forward to get hands on LINUX or UNIX flavours, then get yourself a free copy of UBUNTU ( a free Linux distributable OS). This OS has seriously good or I should say great GUI features as compared to windows flavours. and in a small future ahead this is going to give a serious competition to Microsoft guys...
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I agree. I have used the UBUNTU version and it is rather impressive. The GUI is a variant of Gnome.
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UBUNTU ( a free Linux distributable OS). This OS has seriously good or I should say great GUI features as compared to windows flavours. and in a small future ahead this is going to give a serious competition to Microsoft guys...
This has got to be a good thing. BUT how will it be distributed? (I assume that, by competition, you mean commercial competition - nothing else would affect them at all).
Joe public wants / needs to have his hand held all the way from out of the box. You will have to wait an awful long time before a computer manufacturer will be prepared to supply a machine - to sell in Curry's - that has anything as radical as open source software running it. Where would be the guarantee and the on-going support and upgrades?
Who would advertise it better than Microsoft advertises Windows?
It's a humbling thought that, but for the large volume sales of what you might call 'rubbish', computers would be too expensive for you (or at least most of us) to afford.
We are forced, grudgingly, to acknowledge that Microsoft has achieved quite a lot.
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In a nutshell, Microsoft is for people who don't know any better. That accounts for 90% of PC users worldwide. That's what's on their PC when they get it & they stick with it.
When I say "who don't know better", I don't wish to sound as if I'm denegrating anyone. It's just that they probably have never even heard of Linux, or they think it's just for geeks. In any case, for that 90%, Windows & other MS software does everything they want it to. They are unaware that non-MS software can do everything that MS software does and, in a lot of cases, does it better, faster & more securely. If they were aware of that, maybe they'd expect & want more.
I take on board the question of support; but nearly all of the GNU software I use is supported better than MS. MS support is, without wishing to put too fine a point on it, CRAP. I've had to resort to support with a few packages, but I normally get a very detailed response with a few hours, if not immediately in the case of online support forums. And, I have to say, I've needed support a lot less with GNU software than with MS.
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This has got to be a good thing. BUT how will it be distributed? (I assume that, by competition, you mean commercial competition - nothing else would affect them at all).
Joe public wants / needs to have his hand held all the way from out of the box. You will have to wait an awful long time before a computer manufacturer will be prepared to supply a machine - to sell in Curry's - that has anything as radical as open source software running it. Where would be the guarantee and the on-going support and upgrades?
What guarantee? Does MS offer any guarantee?
The biggest problem is not even the end user, but the third party software suppliers - how much software can you get for the machine (although this is a moving target, and Linux software keeps expanding, but still has a long road to travel).
But in the end, the issue may well not be amenable to change in the USA or Europe, but in expanding markets like Africa and Asia, there is much room for new players, and MS only really has a presence in that market because people ignore the intellectual property rights that MS claim. Greater enforcement of intellectual property rights will ensure that MS will have no place in many of these markets.
It is no co-incidence that Ubuntu is is an African word, and geared as much towards the third world as the first world.
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What guarantee? Does MS offer any guarantee?
You may notice that you get frequent updates of MS software. That 'quarantees' it will work.
Despite the whinges from all of us 'who know better', there is a lot more good about Windows than people acknowledge. It actually works for most people most of the time and half the so-called faults are down to RTFM and not faulty software. How many times have I been asked to help with "this stupid software" which "just won't work" and been able to show the user that the answer is actually written on the screen in front of them?
If it weren't for the huge commercial interest of microsoft, I still say, computers would not be within the reach of the likes of you and me.
Linux is constantly brought into the argument as a viable alternative for Joe public to buy. Well, it just isn't. It's for enthusiasts who are able and prepared to build their own system and to get to know a serious amount of computer stuff.
The only real place for Linux 'for users' is in organisations which are large enough to employ an IT department to install and support software - like Universities.
No one can be surprised that you never find it in the average home - it's just not commercial. Can anyone quote an example of Linus being used in the mass market?
MS only really has a presence in that market because people ignore the intellectual property rights that MS claim. Greater enforcement of intellectual property rights will ensure that MS will have no place in many of these markets.
Does this imply that MS should, or should not enforce their intellectual property rights?
AS far as the Third World market is concerned, can you imagine a successful advertising campaign in the West, based on the idea of "Africa's most popular computer? Maybe in 20 years, but not before. And, once a country reaches the level of prosperity to afford computers and suchlike, it wants the same things that we have in the West.
BTW, this testimonial for MS comes from a Macintosh user of many years' standing. I just think Windows is Plain Ugly but thirty million flies can't be wrong.
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Linux is constantly brought into the argument as a viable alternative for Joe public to buy. Well, it just isn't. It's for enthusiasts who are able and prepared to build their own system and to get to know a serious amount of computer stuff.
The only real place for Linux 'for users' is in organisations which are large enough to employ an IT department to install and support software - like Universities.
That may have been true a few years ago, but not anymore. There are several Linux variants that are "plug & play" and, in fact, a lot easier to instal than Windows. But there's the rub - Joe Public doesn't have to instal Windows, does he.
You ask about a Linux mass market - well, there's the reason why it's lacking. If there was a choice of ready-installed OSs then maybe Linux would have a bigger market share. But that choice just isn't available. MS has made sure of that by tying PC manufacturers into long-term exclusive contracts that forbid them from pre-loading anything except Windows (or now Vista).
It wasn't that long ago that Intel only gave the full specs of its processors to MS. Fortunately, Athlon started making an impact so Intel had to release full details to all software companies to avoid Athlon taking a bigger market share.
I just think Windows is Plain Ugly but thirty million flies can't be wrong.
That's a fair argument only if you want to live off sh*t. And, in any case, those flies could well be wrong. At 1 time those flies believed in a flat Earth.
As I mentioned previously, the average PC buyer has probably never even heard of Linux. If they've never heard of it, they won't realise that it's available, easy to instal & has thousands of free software packages that will run under it. That's why the flies use MS, not because it's better.
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It's not better, if you mean 'really better'.
In this case, however, 'available at your local store and works mostly' means 'better'.
I don't know what can be done about it.
If only someone packaged Linux, or a version of Unix, perhaps, with a nice to use GUI which had lots of software readily available and virtually never fell over . . . Oh, yes, now I remember; I use MACOS 10.4.
But that's pricey too.
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What guarantee? Does MS offer any guarantee?
You may notice that you get frequent updates of MS software. That 'quarantees' it will work.
To me, a guarantee implies that you get your money back if it does not work - just try and do that.
Software updates happen at least as fast in the Linux world as the Windows world.
Despite the whinges from all of us 'who know better', there is a lot more good about Windows than people acknowledge. It actually works for most people most of the time and half the so-called faults are down to RTFM and not faulty software.
I think it is generally recognised that there is a lot of convergence, on both sides, between Linux and Windows - both have been working hard to integrate the advantages of the other into their own domain.
There are still differences, but they get ever fewer each year, and so the decision becomes ever more a matter of whose licence you prefer rather than whose software you prefer.
There still remains the problem, and it has been from the beginning, that the minimum hardware requirement for Windows has always exceeded that for Linux. While historically this has been to the hardware manufacturers and distributors advantage, with ever more concern about the energy usage of computers, this may start to alter (although, to be fair, on graphics intensive games, the OS won't make much difference on hardware demands, but outside of the gaming market, it will be an issue).
If it weren't for the huge commercial interest of microsoft, I still say, computers would not be within the reach of the likes of you and me.
One could argue the same about IBM - but they are no longer significant players in the market at all - past performance is no guarantee of future success.
MS only really has a presence in that market because people ignore the intellectual property rights that MS claim. Greater enforcement of intellectual property rights will ensure that MS will have no place in many of these markets.
Does this imply that MS should, or should not enforce their intellectual property rights?
I was making an observation, not being prescriptive.
From the point of view of Microsoft's self interest, I would guess that they would be better off being lax about enforcement, and only come down heavy once they are certain they have seen off all the opposition (which is pretty much what they have done in the other markets - Microsoft was never heavy in enforcing strict compliance with its IP rights when it was selling DOS).
AS far as the Third World market is concerned, can you imagine a successful advertising campaign in the West, based on the idea of "Africa's most popular computer? Maybe in 20 years, but not before. And, once a country reaches the level of prosperity to afford computers and suchlike, it wants the same things that we have in the West.
I was not talking about marketing, but about critical mass.
The biggest problem with any new OS is achieving critical mass in the market place, no matter how good or bad the product. If Africa provides that critical mass, then it will attract greater investment and development effort from third parties, and that will make Linux more competitive in all markets. It may well be that the third party software we will be buying will be Made in Africa, rather than Made in the USA - but that will give African software suppliers all the more motive to develop and distribute a distinctly different product to that which is dominated by the USA, and so we may see an expanding African software industry going head to head with the US software industry, and with it, a Linux software base going head to head with a Windows software base.
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By the time we see an African software industry, the world will have moved way beyond Windows & Linux.
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I was not talking about marketing, but about critical mass.
Nothing at all happens these days without a market for it, though.
In any case, why are we comparing Linux with Windows? They are different animals.
One works out of the box and the other is half of what you need - even though it is a good piece of kit.
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I was not talking about marketing, but about critical mass.
Nothing at all happens these days without a market for it, though.
In any case, why are we comparing Linux with Windows? They are different animals.
One works out of the box and the other is half of what you need - even though it is a good piece of kit.
Which 1 are you saying works straight out of the box?
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I was not talking about marketing, but about critical mass.
Nothing at all happens these days without a market for it, though.
In a crude sense, this is true - but one has to use a very broad definition of marketing to make that true - and in that broad definition, Linux has plenty of marketing behind it, but it mostly is not of a commercial nature.
In any case, why are we comparing Linux with Windows? They are different animals.
One works out of the box and the other is half of what you need - even though it is a good piece of kit.
I am not sure which you regard as being "half of what you need"?
An operating system is an operating system - which ever it is. If you are talking about an operating system with bundled applications, most Linux distributions have a wealth of bundled applications, just as most modern Windows distributions have.
Where you may have a point is that Linux's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness - it has a lot of choice, but for many users, that very choice can be overwhelming - where Windows gives you one ways of doing anything, Linux will give you several, and you are asked to choose which way is best for you.
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What, exactly, is your argument?
Linux is fine, as far as it goes. What more is there to say about it, except that it is only half of what is needed for anyone's computer. Unless 'someone' picks it up and runs with it, it will never be popular. It needs to be SOLD to millions of customers, along with the necessary interface and popular software and sold as part of a package. So far, it has not been.
In the long term, the World computing scene will change; by that time, both Windows and Linux will probably be history. Something else will be there and that something will have been sold to the public because it will be a package that works straight away for the guy who buys it and needs absolutely no specialist knowledge. Linux is not that sort of a beast; it gives you a choice - or,rather, it forces you to choose and build your own system.
How many people build their own car, or house or hifi?
Windows provides, so MS have convinced everyone, everything you need. You have to hand it to them. The computer makers have come to the same conclusion because they bundle it with almost every machine that is sold. Apple are the only major producer and they are even more prescriptive about their products and have almost total control in every direction. At least the product is ok.
Linus may be the Real Ale of computing but there ain't a CAMRA to get it off the ground and there won't be because it is incomplete.
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I fail to understand what you mean by Linux being only half of what you need.
And you make it sound as if Linux is hard to install. I've tried a few variants - Red Hat, Apache, Debian - and, yes, Red Hat & Apache need to be configured if you install them raw. But Debian and, as far as I know, Ubuntu, do all the configuration automatically. You literally insert the CD (or run the download) and that's it. What could be easier?
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In the long term, the World computing scene will change; by that time, both Windows and Linux will probably be history.
I am not exactly sure what you (and Eth) mean by this?
Windows has been around since about 1990, and Linux is about 5 years younger (although the underlying Unix architecture has been around since the mid 1960s).
The Windows we run today is only vaguely related to the windows that existed in 1990, but it is still of the same lineage. The same is true of Linux over its life. The important thing in both cases is at no time could the providers of either operating system afford to make a clean break with the past, as that would lose them their existing user and software base. Apple managed, with some difficulty, to make a break from the Mac OS to OS X, but Apple has a fairly small user base, and as you have said, they keep very tight control over their software base, and so it was just about possible to manage such a migration. Neither Linux nor Microsoft keep quite such a tight control over its software base, and the sheer size of Microsoft's user base, makes a total break with the past impossible (even the migration of Windows from XP to Vista took longer than Microsoft has desired, despite the fact that it is only an incremental step in OS, and not a totally new OS paradigm).
It is very probable that the Windows and Linux's we will be using in 10 years time will look very different to what we have today, but I suspect that at no stage will either be able to afford a clear break with the past, and what we will be running will be something that can trace its lineage to what we have today (assuming we have general purpose PC's at all - and it may be that by then, computing will become so cheap, that the PC will be cheap, and we will simply have lots of special purpose computers for each task).
How many people build their own car, or house or hifi?
Linux users do not 'build' their PC - they select the features they desire.
This used to be a contrast between Japanese and German quality cars - the Japanese gave you every gadget you could imagine, but you had no choice in thge matter; whereas the Germans would allow you to select whether or not you wanted air-con, whether or not you wanted an opening sun roof, whether you wanted leather or velour seats, what size steering wheel you wanted, what quality of ICE you wanted, etc. Linux is more like the German car approach, while Windows is more like the Japanese approach.
The computer makers have come to the same conclusion because they bundle it with almost every machine that is sold.
This is beginning to change, with Dell and HP I think both providing Linux as an option (but Linux has only been a serious contender in the last few years).
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George - what I meant was more of a comment on the likelihood of an African software industry ever happening. Personally, I consider that a very remote possibility. The educational infrastructure is not there and the socio-political structure of most African countries would suggest that it will not be in the forseeable future.
Far more likely is a Chinese, S E Asian or Indian software invasion. India is already the largest software producer in the world.
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Windows has been around since about 1990...
Yeah - 17 years & they still haven't ironed out all the bugs!
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George - what I meant was more of a comment on the likelihood of an African software industry ever happening. Personally, I consider that a very remote possibility. The educational infrastructure is not there and the socio-political structure of most African countries would suggest that it will not be in the forseeable future.
Far more likely is a Chinese, S E Asian or Indian software invasion. India is already the largest software producer in the world.
India certainly has a very large software sector - although a substantial proportion of that is outsourced from the West.
Eastern Europe (including Russia) also has a substantial software sector.
As for the infrastructure in Africa - if you look at much of the computer industry (in fact, most new industries), they develop in hot spots - so you don't need a good infrastructure throughout the continent, only to have enough talent in one or two localities (this is certainly true of India - where despite its very rapid advancement in some urban settings, it still is very backward in much of its rural hinterland).
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Linux users do not 'build' their PC - they select the features they desire.
Yes - that's what you or I might do. BUT you know what you're doing.
Adding software to get what you want is building. If you don't know what you need or want, you can't do it. There is a lot of really low grade utility software, sold for PCs - the sort you find on racks in Maplin and the like. People are reluctant to buy it, even at silly, low prices - and they're mostly right too.
Why else do you think people pay through the nose for Windows (plus Office)?
This has the same ring to it as home cooking; most people get their food ready-processed or take-away. The only proper cooking in their lives is what they see done on TV.
and it may be that by then, computing will become so cheap, that the PC will be cheap, and we will simply have lots of special purpose computers for each task
Yes - that would put an end to the problem. It has started with the games console - few people play games seriously on their PC, any more.
The next thing will be that you buy a 'wordprocessor' just like in the Amstrad days.
You may buy a graphics tablet and do all your picture processing on that and then talk to your TV to do your video editing that way.
All your database stuff will be web based - with a simple interface with your TV, or on your phone / PDA.
Problem solved.