16 year old girls laptop

[weirdwaldo]

So after a week long battle with a friends daughters computer (most infested thing Ive ever seen) I finally gave up, saved the important stuff and formated it.

So now, being as she myspaces, tweets and whatnot. I was wondering what the best virus/spyware protection I could find for her would be. I installed Antivir and tweaked the settings and installed malwarebytes (basically set it up the way I would my own comp), but I was wondering what you guys thought?

Whats a good realtime scanning setup I could put on the laptop, its a compaq f700, decent enough rig so it can handle what you throw at it. So if you guys had your druthers, what would you install for maximum security?

Interested in opinions

Thanks much

 

[dguy6789]

Get every Windows Update and make sure it is set to auto update. Download and install Spybot Search and Destroy and Spyware Blaster. Take advantage of Spybot's immunize function and enable all protection in Spyware Blaster. Use the most recent version of firefox along with Ad Block Plus extension.

Do these things and coupled with an automatically updating Avira and she should be set for a long time.

 

[weirdwaldo]

Ahh Spybot, forgot about its realtime protection. Also got everything to update automatically too

Been along time since I used spywareblaster as well, wasnt impressed back then, assuming its good now?

Thanks for the quick reply

 

[dguy6789]

I like Spybot and Spyware Blaster because of the prevention aspects of them. Unlike an anti-virus, they don't have to be open and consuming resources to be protecting the machine.

 

[TheStu]

Make sure that she is not running as an administrator, ensure that all AV software and Windows is up to date, as well as Quicktime (if present), Flash, Java, all that. It isn't always the main programs that are the attack vectors, but rather the addons.

Twitter shoudn't be much of an danger, but Myspace certainly just do to all the nonsense that has a habit of auto-running, and the options to download various things.

 

[mechBgon]

Here's my strategy, which includes several of the tips already given: http://www.mechbgon.com/security

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Update using windows update. Use Windows Defender for anti-malware. AVG free will take care of anti-virus. That's all you need. CCleaner to clean up.

 

[mc866]

Mechbgon's guide mentions it, but the suggestion I have is to use some sort of imaging product to make a "clean and stable" image, and if anything goes wrong you can restore to this image rather than reinstalling windows every time, or having to spend hours removing malware. Just a thought.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea no amount of security is going to stop a user with admin privileges from f*cking it up.
make an image.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: mc866
Mechbgon's guide mentions it, but the suggestion I have is to use some sort of imaging product to make a "clean and stable" image, and if anything goes wrong you can restore to this image rather than reinstalling windows every time, or having to spend hours removing malware. Just a thought.

I do the same thing with OS X at home. The advantage for me is that I can just plug the 'cloned to' drive into my computer and update the apps and OS periodically without having to image back and forth.

Now if anyone (not to thread jack) could point to something like that for Windows (bit for bit clone, not an image) that could also help the OP as well as me.

 

[mc866]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: mc866
Mechbgon's guide mentions it, but the suggestion I have is to use some sort of imaging product to make a "clean and stable" image, and if anything goes wrong you can restore to this image rather than reinstalling windows every time, or having to spend hours removing malware. Just a thought.

I do the same thing with OS X at home. The advantage for me is that I can just plug the 'cloned to' drive into my computer and update the apps and OS periodically without having to image back and forth.

Now if anyone (not to thread jack) could point to something like that for Windows (bit for bit clone, not an image) that could also help the OP as well as me.

A few windows clone programs:

Acronis True Image, does images and will clone
Clonezilla, free and have heard good things, haven't used it myself

There are others, do a bit of searching, it's discussed here all the time

 

[geokilla]

I use Super AntiSypware and Kaspersky Internet Security. I have them set so that it'll scan my computer for viruses and spyware every Saturday when I'm not using the computer.

Cloning and creating drive images aren't bad, but would the 16 year old know how to use and create updated image or restore them if she crashes the computer?

 

[Savarak]

i just learned about Windows SteadyState in a newer thread... that sounds like a good option for that laptop

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: mc866

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: mc866
Mechbgon's guide mentions it, but the suggestion I have is to use some sort of imaging product to make a "clean and stable" image, and if anything goes wrong you can restore to this image rather than reinstalling windows every time, or having to spend hours removing malware. Just a thought.

I do the same thing with OS X at home. The advantage for me is that I can just plug the 'cloned to' drive into my computer and update the apps and OS periodically without having to image back and forth.

Now if anyone (not to thread jack) could point to something like that for Windows (bit for bit clone, not an image) that could also help the OP as well as me.

A few windows clone programs:

Acronis True Image, does images and will clone
Clonezilla, free and have heard good things, haven't used it myself

There are others, do a bit of searching, it's discussed here all the time

I have tried both, they just aren't quite the same as what I am used to with OS X, which is less an issue of trying something new, and not finding what I am looking for. It is hard to describe exactly what is 'wrong' with the Windows options, but what I love most about the OS X solutions is that hard drive size only matters so far as to ensure that the destination drive is large enough to fit the source data. With Acronis, I tried backing up a 40GB partition on a 500GB drive to an empty 160GB drive and it wouldn't let me since the 160GB DRIVE was smaller than the 500GB DRIVE, it didn't care that I only wanted to clone the 40GB partition.

 

[nordloewelabs]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Get every Windows Update and make sure it is set to auto update. Download and install Spybot Search and Destroy and Spyware Blaster. Take advantage of Spybot's immunize function and enable all protection in Spyware Blaster. Use the most recent version of firefox along with Ad Block Plus extension.

Do these things and coupled with an automatically updating Avira and she should be set for a long time.

if she's logging on as the Administrator, none of that will help her. create a Restricted User Account for her and withhold the Admin password from her. then install AntiVir and setup Windows to update automatically. pronto! she might not like the solution (it's a bit restrictive), however it would make mishaps and infections very rare.

 

[jae]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: mc866

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: mc866
Mechbgon's guide mentions it, but the suggestion I have is to use some sort of imaging product to make a "clean and stable" image, and if anything goes wrong you can restore to this image rather than reinstalling windows every time, or having to spend hours removing malware. Just a thought.

I do the same thing with OS X at home. The advantage for me is that I can just plug the 'cloned to' drive into my computer and update the apps and OS periodically without having to image back and forth.

Now if anyone (not to thread jack) could point to something like that for Windows (bit for bit clone, not an image) that could also help the OP as well as me.

A few windows clone programs:

Acronis True Image, does images and will clone
Clonezilla, free and have heard good things, haven't used it myself

There are others, do a bit of searching, it's discussed here all the time

I have tried both, they just aren't quite the same as what I am used to with OS X, which is less an issue of trying something new, and not finding what I am looking for. It is hard to describe exactly what is 'wrong' with the Windows options, but what I love most about the OS X solutions is that hard drive size only matters so far as to ensure that the destination drive is large enough to fit the source data. With Acronis, I tried backing up a 40GB partition on a 500GB drive to an empty 160GB drive and it wouldn't let me since the 160GB DRIVE was smaller than the 500GB DRIVE, it didn't care that I only wanted to clone the 40GB partition.

never had that problem with acronis.

 

[Kaido]

For Security & Optimization:

1. Run Windows Update to get the latest updates
2. Firewall: Zonealarm Free
3. Antivirus: Antivir (with nag disable trick)
4. Spyware: Spybot, Ad-Aware, CCleaner (use all three)
5. Defrag: SmartDefrag (auto-defrag when idle)
6. File Recovery: "Recover My Files"
7. Browser: Firefox with Adblock Plus plugin
8. Cloning: BartPE with DriveImageXML plugin (when finished with the above, make a clone and store it on your personal NAS or backup HDD for safe-keeping & quick restore later on)

It's also good to throw on VLC & CCCP for video, as well as the VideoDownloader Helper plugin for Firefox to save Youtube videos etc.

 

[insect9]

It has been mentioned before in this thread, but can't be stressed enough: restricted user account. Without that, most (if not all) precautions you take will be pointless.