Securing a pc for free? - Page 2

ADd · 25-10-2006, 21:44

I have a friend who is running Xp with 500Mhz celeron and 256MB of ram. It has no issues, as long as unnecessary startup items are remove eg msn messenger, java etc. Winpatrol, or SPybot S & D can do this (spybot choose 'advanced' mode)

They use Jetico firewall, winpatrol, AVG,
Zonealarm is somewhat resource hungry, so Sunbelt Kerio might be a better bet.

Gareth · 25-10-2006, 21:47

Sort of off topic, but just wanted to post this for Dragon (and any other *nix users), when you do decide to give Linux another go, have a look at Bastille - www.bastille-linux.org [bastille-linux.org].

Quote:

Originally Posted by bastille-linux.org

What is it?

The Bastille Hardening program "locks down" an operating system, proactively configuring the system for increased security and decreasing its susceptibility to compromise. Bastille can also assess a system's current state of hardening, granularly reporting on each of the security settings with which it works.

Bastille currently supports the Red Hat (Fedora Core, Enterprise, and Numbered/Classic), SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, and Mandrake distributions, along with HP-UX. Full Mac OS X is in beta, ready for download today. Bastille's focuses on letting the system's user/administrator choose exactly how to harden the operating system. In its default hardening mode, it interactively asks the user questions, explains the topics of those questions, and builds a policy based on the user's answers. It then applies the policy to the system. In its assessment mode, it builds a report intended to teach the user about available security settings as well as inform the user as to which settings have been tightened.

As for the original topic, I think others have already posted what I was going to say... except maybe considering Outpost Firewall. There's a free version which has received very good reviews, although it isn't the most easiest/user-friendly to configure but once it's running it's supposedly very effective. More info... http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpostfree/index.php [agnitum.com]

dragon · 25-10-2006, 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

ok the user then but you know what I ment I was generalising wasnt belittling you

No problem

i just felt like having a rant.

Off topic:

Know of a good distro Zingle? I'd be perticuarly interested in one thats package management system/repositories contains a wide selecteion and is regularly updated I find most of them don't have the current versions of a lot of software and manually updating usally throws me into depedancy hell.

On my home machine I dont really want to have to faff about trying to grab several librires and install stuff from source just to be able to get a media player updated for example... (i usally manage to screw something up).

Its about time they relised that if they want more people to use linux then pretty graphical installers or the mac drag n drop, your done meathord is the way to go.

---------- Post added at 21:55 ---------- Previous post was at 21:47 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADd

I have a friend who is running Xp with 500Mhz celeron and 256MB of ram. It has no issues, as long as unnecessary startup items are remove eg msn messenger, java etc. Winpatrol, or SPybot S & D can do this (spybot choose 'advanced' mode)

They use Jetico firewall, winpatrol, AVG,
Zonealarm is somewhat resource hungry, so Sunbelt Kerio might be a better bet.

I heard the newest versions are a little resrouce hungry and 2.51 (which was the version before they started adding a load of crap to it) has a secuirty advisory against it

ADd · 25-10-2006, 22:00

Sunbelt Kerio is now at Version: 4.3.268. Yes it does use resources, but the boot-time is quicker than Zonealarm on the slower systems I have tried it on. Jetico is one of the lightest, but as I have commented before, it is very user intensive.

Best thing to do is trial the firewalls on the system, with your internet manually removed - see how the boot times are, and go for the one you like as a user

deadite66 · 25-10-2006, 22:02

for a lightweight windows firewall i've started using http://www.sensiveguard.com/

dragon · 25-10-2006, 22:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADd

Sunbelt Kerio is now at Version: 4.3.268. Yes it does use resources, but the boot-time is quicker than Zonealarm on the slower systems I have tried it on. Jetico is one of the lightest, but as I have commented before, it is very user intensive.

Best thing to do is trial the firewalls on the system, with your internet manually removed - see how the boot times are, and go for the one you like as a user

Whats the latest kerio like for user friendlyness?

Boottime doesnt matter tbh can always go off and wait for it to load up its how responcive the system is once booted thats more important.

SnoopZ · 25-10-2006, 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragon

Whats the latest kerio like for user friendlyness?

Boottime doesnt matter tbh can always go off and wait for it to load up its how responcive the system is once booted thats more important.

I love it. Bootup and shut down is very quick too.

ADd · 25-10-2006, 22:13

Easy to setup, effective, and well presented. If you can afford the full version go for that, but the free is good at what it does.

dragon · 25-10-2006, 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gareth

Sort of off topic, but just wanted to post this for Dragon (and any other *nix users), when you do decide to give Linux another go, have a look at Bastille - www.bastille-linux.org [bastille-linux.org].

As for the original topic, I think others have already posted what I was going to say... except maybe considering Outpost Firewall. There's a free version which has received very good reviews, although it isn't the most easiest/user-friendly to configure but once it's running it's supposedly very effective. More info... http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpostfree/index.php [agnitum.com]

thanks i just ran that on my server just had to be a bit carefull anwsering the questions so not to turn anything important off (like apache)

Gareth · 25-10-2006, 22:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragon

Know of a good distro Zingle? I'd be perticuarly interested in one thats package management system/repositories contains a wide selecteion and is regularly updated I find most of them don't have the current versions of a lot of software and manually updating usally throws me into depedancy hell.

On my home machine I dont really want to have to faff about trying to grab several librires and install stuff from source just to be able to get a media player updated for example... (i usally manage to screw something up).

Its about time they relised that if they want more people to use linux then pretty graphical installers or the mac drag n drop, your done meathord is the way to go.

We should really fork this question into its own new thread, but here goes anyway...

From your criteria above, I think you should give Ubuntu a whirl (or Kubuntu - the same distro but using the prettier KDE desktop manager). It uses the Debian APT package management which is nice and easy to use - no dependency hell any more - and if you use Synaptic it's got a good GUI front end, although the apt command is straight forward enough anyway.

The advantage over other distros is that the packages seem to be updated more frequently - esp compared to Debian, which it's based on.

Check out the docs - https://help.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/deskt...e/C/index.html [ubuntu.com] - and see if you think you could get by with it. Then either download it for free or request they send you the latest DVD (also for free

).

HTH

dragon · 26-10-2006, 09:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gareth

We should really fork this question into its own new thread, but here goes anyway...

From your criteria above, I think you should give Ubuntu a whirl (or Kubuntu - the same distro but using the prettier KDE desktop manager). It uses the Debian APT package management which is nice and easy to use - no dependency hell any more - and if you use Synaptic it's got a good GUI front end, although the apt command is straight forward enough anyway.

The advantage over other distros is that the packages seem to be updated more frequently - esp compared to Debian, which it's based on.

Check out the docs - https://help.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/deskt...e/C/index.html [ubuntu.com] - and see if you think you could get by with it. Then either download it for free or request they send you the latest DVD (also for free

).

HTH

used it before, cant remember why i stoped, think there was something that i couldnt get working with it.

might try the latest version and see if its any better.

With regards to my uncles pc i'll probably stick kerio and avast on it.

Also im going to replace his harddrives with a single 40gb 5400rpm drive ive got laying around

Perticuarly as the 10gb one is ata 33, not sure of the rotational speed but its rather slow to say the least.

Also going to replace his NIC with a Belkin one ive got spare (his is a 3com but i think its only 10mbit

)

His pc was pretty much made out of spare/scavinged parts so it has a bit of an odd spec (it has an ISA sb16 board in there if i remember rightly

)

dragon · 26-10-2006, 13:45

NTL install went smoothly apart from my uncles pc unable to pickup a ip address from DHCP, turned out the nic i put in was screwed, it had a link but wasnt actaully transfering any data, so it looks like he will have to make do with his old 10mbit nic for now.

I thought at first it was NTL's modem but i tryed it with my laptop and it worked so thats why it was probably the NIC.

Gareth · 26-10-2006, 13:51

Apologies in advance if this is an insulting question... Did you power down the modem after trying the lappy and before trying the NIC? Because of the different MAC addresses between the different devices, you'd need to reboot the modem for it to recognise the NIC.

If so, then I'd agree... sounds like a knackered NIC.

dragon · 26-10-2006, 14:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gareth

Apologies in advance if this is an insulting question... Did you power down the modem after trying the lappy and before trying the NIC? Because of the different MAC addresses between the different devices, you'd need to reboot the modem for it to recognize the NIC.

If so, then I'd agree... sounds like a knackered NIC.

yeah I did and it was the Dtop i tryed first not the laptop, only tryed the laptop because the PC wasn't picking up an IP just to see if the it was the PC or the NTL modem

Nic had been rattling around my bedroom for ages so not that surprised that it didn't work