From: maxe@who.cares.com

I've had it with the pricing and constant intrusion of the newer
AV products. They've become as bad as the old style firewalls that
were always blocking something or asking questions about every
keystroke. I'm thinking of not having any of them on my computer.
I'm also thinking that if something goes south with my box because
of some malware or other that Acronis True Image will save me by
allowing me to load a previous healthy image of my C:

My question is about what are my chances of acquiring a virus or
some other malware that would lock up my box so that even my Acronis
Rescue Disk could not load? Yes, I know such bad stuff is most
probably out there, but what are my chances of getting stuck with
such a vicious piece of malware? I operate rather safely. I
haven't had a virus warning for quite a few years from the AV
programs I've been using.
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)

From: Shadow <Sh@dow.br>

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:16:42 -0500, maxe@who.cares.com wrote:

I've had it with the pricing and constant intrusion of the newer
AV products. They've become as bad as the old style firewalls that
were always blocking something or asking questions about every
keystroke. I'm thinking of not having any of them on my computer.
I'm also thinking that if something goes south with my box because
of some malware or other that Acronis True Image will save me by
allowing me to load a previous healthy image of my C:

Yes, it would.

My question is about what are my chances of acquiring a virus or
some other malware that would lock up my box so that even my Acronis
Rescue Disk could not load?

Minimal, unless it's some government-sponsored designer
malware built into the hardware. You will be booting a different OS
(usually Linux) from an independent media, so a rootkit should not be
a problem.

Yes, I know such bad stuff is most
probably out there, but what are my chances of getting stuck with
such a vicious piece of malware? I operate rather safely. I
haven't had a virus warning for quite a few years from the AV
programs I've been using.

Just scan your system every now and then with a USB or CD
booted AV rescue disk. Download and burn it on a trusted PC. Pull the
internet connection before you boot it.
Practice safe hex. Don't allow javascript for every site, and
remove Flash and Java from your browser. Don't click on email, Usenet
etc attachments or unknown executable files without submitting their
hashes to Virustotal or Jotti.
Even then a waiting a few days is good, so you won't get a
zero-day.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)

From: maxe@who.cares.com

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 19:30:53 -0200, Shadow <Sh@dow.br> wrote:

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:16:42 -0500, maxe@who.cares.com wrote:

I've had it with the pricing and constant intrusion of the newer
AV products. They've become as bad as the old style firewalls that
were always blocking something or asking questions about every
keystroke. I'm thinking of not having any of them on my computer.
I'm also thinking that if something goes south with my box because
of some malware or other that Acronis True Image will save me by
allowing me to load a previous healthy image of my C:

Yes, it would.

Just in case of a *worst case* scenario I not only keep a True Image
image on the extra partition TI creates on the C:, I also save a
copy to an external drive.

My question is about what are my chances of acquiring a virus or
some other malware that would lock up my box so that even my Acronis
Rescue Disk could not load?

Minimal, unless it's some government-sponsored designer
malware built into the hardware. You will be booting a different OS
(usually Linux) from an independent media, so a rootkit should not be
a problem.

I have not counted the number of times Acronis True Image has saved
my machine. It's done it a lot of times. Usually, system crashes
are a result of my tinkering around with some badly written
software, or some program that starts a quarrel with something else
on my machine.

Yes, I know such bad stuff is most
probably out there, but what are my chances of getting stuck with
such a vicious piece of malware? I operate rather safely. I
haven't had a virus warning for quite a few years from the AV
programs I've been using.

Just scan your system every now and then with a USB or CD
booted AV rescue disk. Download and burn it on a trusted PC. Pull the >internet connection before you boot it.

I never thought of doing that with an AV Rescue disk. I searched
and found an interesting page which lists many of those AV Rescue
disks.

https://www.techsupportall.com/best-bootable-antivirus-rescue-severely-infected-computer/

That's a good idea. Thanks!

Practice safe hex. Don't allow javascript for every site, and
remove Flash and Java from your browser. Don't click on email, Usenet
etc attachments or unknown executable files without submitting their
hashes to Virustotal or Jotti.

Even then a waiting a few days is good, so you won't get a
zero-day.
[]'s

I stopped using Java some years back.

I use Tor a lot for browsing, but it's a bit of a pain at times
because many sites won't work properly with Tor.

I am *very* leery of exe, cmd, bat, etc., etc. I have a list of
those for my newsreader Agent to kill filter. As for the Web, I am
going to use VirusTotal if I do download an executable since I won't
have an AV onboard.

I did something today that I didn't think I'd do again. I
downloaded a firewall. It's called PrivateFirewall. I found some
reviews about it and decided to give it a try. I figured without an
AV, I do need some extra help keeping my comp clean.

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/privatefirewall.html

I knew damn well I didn't want Comodo or any of the other popular
freebies which send info outbound to their home, so I searched for
something else. So far, PrivateFirewall is very unintrusive. I
have it set to "Train" in regard to the programs on my machine that
access Usenet and the Web. I also have blocked other programs which
have no business trying to connect outbound.

So far, the program is really simple to use - as long as I don't try
to go beyond my understanding of all that packet, udp and tcp stuff.
I figure no matter how stunted my use is of its capabilities, I'll
still be safer with its default settings than not having the program
at all - unless it becomes a pain in the arse. Then it'll be gone.

Somehow I think I just might be able to survive without those
ridiculously overpriced AV programs, plus the spy suites which send
your online life happenings to their "cloud".

By the way, I have kept my Windows XP firewall active along with PrivateFirewall. I checked with GRC's ShieldsUP site and passed the
tests. I'll have to do some searching around to see if I should
keep the Win XP firewall active or not.

Thanks for helping.
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)