Will using an older operating system lower your chances of Viruses?

[Drugwash]

Right on spot on the recycle bin, Rick, thanks. Just one mention in regard to responsability: knowing the possible outcome of a random, rash click, one would quickly become aware of this in a wider environment such as the Internet. Thinking twice before clicking a link can and will help against infections.

Related to cleaning up traces and certain folders - as I mentioned in some other thread - adding a few lines to autoexec.bat (and enabling a few actions in TweakUI) would take care of this:

deltree /y %windir%\cookies

deltree /y %windir%\history

deltree /y %windir%\temp

deltree /y %windir%\tempor~1

md %windir%\temp

[cannie]

Related to cleaning up traces and certain folders - as I mentioned in some other thread - adding a few lines to autoexec.bat (and enabling a few actions in TweakUI) would take care of this:

There is a program named emptybin.exe which cleans the bin at every start. I use it since long ago. You may download it from here:

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/3024.html

You may execute it at every system start by putting it in the C:\Windows folder and executing this .reg script:

_______________________________________________________________

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

"Emptybin"="C:\\Windows\\emptybin.exe"

_______________________________________________________________

Copy to a .txt file and rename it afterwards, i.e. clean.reg. Click on it and that's all.

It works also under XP.

About the need of a firewall, IMHO the oldest the best, not only when using Windows 98 but even more when using XP. The outbound connections are more dangerous today than the inbound ones, if you take into account that many apps call home regularly when you use them, and this call may be used to force you to spend more money in software or hardware, one way or another.

Remember that computing is essentially business and fair play is not always used.

Edited December 10, 2008 by cannie

[Drugwash]

Uhm... which bin? Remember I don't use any. And even so, completely deleting the Recycle Bin folder(s) through a few autoexec lines would be far easier than using third-party tools and safer since the 32bit subsystem wouldn't have a chance to run any of the (possibly infected) recycled files; Windows will recreate the folder(s) after startup, same as with Temporary Internet Files (Tempor~1 in my post above).

As for 'calling home': this may be true for illegally used applications; once one used only legit apps (freeware, open-source or self-built), there's usually no need to switch paranoia mode on. But as always, YMMV.

BTW, I liked the wh***s line better.

[Aloha]

Herbalist and Drugwash,

Thank you both for all the information. I set the maximum size of the recycle bin very small, only 1% of each drive. And I empty it every week so I don't think it can slow the system down. I often carelessly delete some files so I must use it. But even when I don't want to use the recycle bin, I'll only disable it. I think its icon is a nice decoration on the desktop and don't want to delete it at all.

As for the threat of infection, if I don't go to the bad sites then I don't need to worry so much, right? I am just curious when reading something new and strange that I haven't known before. And I can't help asking about it. That's all.

Thanks again for your answers, friends.

[cannie]

Uhm... which bin?...

BTW, I liked the wh***s line better.

I forgot you had said it before. Of course, the best way to fix a problem is not having it.

I was thinking about the possibility of a bad use of backdoors to increase business, even when you are using software delivered as freeware. As you know, there is a lot of spyware in many of these apps.

Well, I repeat the line you liked (my excuses if anybody finds the word a little ugly, that's why I edited the line):

"Whores were always better paid than nones"

[Drugwash]

I often carelessly delete some files [...]

This proves you're not a very responsible person hence you're more prone to bumping into nasties. All it takes is a 'careless' click (not 'whisper' ) and... better knock on wood, eh?

I was thinking about the possibility of a bad use of backdoors to increase business, even when you are using software delivered as freeware. As you know, there is a lot of spyware in many of these apps.

I suppose you could be right on this. However, personally I stick to about the same set of applications and if there was anything bad about them I'd hear it around. Since 9x updates are more and more rare nowadays, the old and trusted versions should be enough and pose no threat.

I also try to build my own tools lately, although I pretty much suck at it since I'm quite old and my mind is more like swiss cheese rather than a sponge, so learning goes slow to stalling. But it's fun anyway and it ensures the lack of unwanted "prying eyes".

Oh and thanks for the nice line; I believe 1000 words of academic speech cannot have the depth of a couple popular words in a saying.

[herbalist]

Windows will recreate the folder(s) after startup, same as with Temporary Internet Files (Tempor~1 in my post above).

I don't know if 98SE behaves differently than FE, but on FE the recycle bin is not recreated at startup. Windows makes a new one when you delete something.

As for 'calling home': this may be true for illegally used applications; once one used only legit apps (freeware, open-source or self-built), there's usually no need to switch paranoia mode on. But as always, YMMV.

It's not that black and white. A lot of legitimate apps are adding undesirable extras. They're usually mentioned in the EULA if you can stand to read those things but are not otherwise obvious. Delivering ads or data mining to boost their income are more common that many realize. If the user doesn't have control over outbound traffic, they're not going to be aware of the data mining. If you have control when your software updates, then unexpected or undesired calling home isn't an issue, but not all apps give you that option. I've had a few that updated without asking or informing me. Kerio immediately blocked their internet access and alerted me that the application had changed. Sounds innocent enough until you find that the "change" they made is delivering ads to your desktop. Even some security app vendors are making deals with advertising companies. I don't remember where I read it, but some big shot in the ad industry made the statement, roughly quoted:

The desktop is prime advertising real estate and like it or not, it will be used.

AFAIC, my desktop is MY real estate, and whether they like it or not, they will keep their damned billboards off of it. It's also none of their business where I browse, what I see, or what I'm using, and I will not allow anything to send out any data without asking first or sending it in a form that I can't read.

Most companies claim ownership of the software and operating systems we use, even after we buy them. It's bad enough when we purchase something but still don't own it. On top of that, these companies assume the right to use our internet connection and bandwidth, which we pay for, to deliver content that we don't want, and using up our disk space and system resources in the process. Some of them like M$ want us to constantly prove that we didn't steal their software. Others assume that they have the right to collect our usage habits and sell that data or to check on all the media on our PC just to make sure they've gotten all the money they think they're entitled to for it.

An outbound firewall is one of the primary tools that enable us to draw the line and tell them, "Your rights end here! This is mine" and make it stick. Sorry about the rant. I spent too many years in the anti-spyware community dealing with their underhanded tactics and removing that garbage from far too many PCs to take this subject lightly.

Rick

[Drugwash]

No worries, Rick, not gonna deny your experience in this field.

As for the recreation of the Bin, you're probably right - not having seen it for years made my mind rusty in this regard; important thing is, it can safely be deleted at boot time with no adverse effects, other than possibly losing accidentally deleted files.

[Dude111]

I use no firewall, no antivirus and have the browser open most of the time while being connected 24/7 and have had no idea what an infection is for years, with Win98SE.

Your taking a chance though bud,my firewall blocks many port scans,etc.... Your letting them scan and who knows if and when they may try something!

Win98se is one of the BEST os's out there and one mustnt do foolish things (Just in case)

Edited December 10, 2008 by Dude111

[98Guy]

Alexanrs, does it mean that if I use a router, my computer will hardly get infected?

If your DSL or cable modem has more than 1 LAN port (ie if you can connect more than 1 computer into it via RJ45 jacks) then it has a built-in NAT-router. Or if you have a separate router between your modem and your PC (or PC's) then you have a NAT-router.

Yes, a NAT-router will function as a MORE EFFICIENT in-bound firewall than any firewall software you install on your PC. And unlike your software firewall, your NAT-router can't be deactivated or bypassed by any malware or trojan that has infected your PC.

What a NAT-router can't do is perform *out-bound* fire-walling. But that particular function is useless as a protective method because it doesn't keep malware from getting into your PC, it only prevents malware from contacting the outside world once it's already installed itself. But even in that case, it's well known that many different types of viruses and trojans attempt to deactivate your software firewall (or find ways around it) so that the malware can contact the outside world without you knowing about it anyways.

What most people here use their software firewall for is to prevent certain software (trusted software that the users obtained and installed for one reason or another) to prevent that software from communicating to the outside world on it's own. Those people have a fundamental opposition to any software that performs automated communication or data transfer to an external host and use a software firewall to prevent that communication. Those people consider that sort of "unauthorized" communication as being a security issue, hence that's why they are insistent that a software firewall should be a standard item on any PC that's connected to the internet. To the extent that that sort of communication really is a "security" issue, vs an ideological issue, is debatable.

[98Guy]

I use no firewall, no antivirus and have the browser open most of the time while being connected 24/7 and have had no idea what an infection is for years, with Win98SE.

Your taking a chance though bud,my firewall blocks many port scans,etc.... Your letting them scan and who knows if and when they may try something!

Win98se is one of the BEST os's out there and one mustnt do foolish things (Just in case)

If he has a NAT-router, then he won't be exposed to any port scans.

And also note the following: Windows 98 has practically no vulnerabilities to port scans or network worms anyways. If you turn file and printer sharing off (which is the default setting) then I know of no such vulnerability - period.

Windows 2K, and (I believe) also XP-gold and XP-sp1 were legendary at being vulnerable to infection simply by having a working internet connection (no user intervention, no web browsing or e-mail reading required). Win-9x was never that vulnerable.

[98Guy]

Alexanrs, does it mean that if I use a router, my computer will hardly get infected?

Just to answer your question more directly, a software firewall won't prevent your system from getting infected - at least not by the first stage of a multi-stage infection. If the firewall works as advertized, it will (a) tell you that an unauthorized process is attempting to communicate with the outside world, and (b) it will prevent the download of any secondary or second-stage payload. Again, this is assuming that the primary payload hasn't deactivated the firewall (and also hasn't deactivated your AV software) in the first place.

Your best bet at preventing infection is as follows:

a) harden or "innoculate" your browsers by using something like spybot or spyware blaster

b) obtain a third-party hosts file (I use MVPS hosts file)

c) run a real-time registry monitoring program

d) either disable java, or always install the most recent JRE version (AND UN-INSTALL THE OLD VERSION).

e) hard-code your DNS server setting (DNS spoofing is becoming more common).

f) if your OS is windows 98, then make sure it's updated to the best extent possible.

g) if you download any file (audio, movie, software, etc) and you have doubts about the security of the file (and the file is less than a few mb in size) then upload it to virustotal.com and have it analyzed before you open or run it.

Note that AV or firewall software is not on the above list at all. I think that AV software is almost as useless as firewall software.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

As for the threat of infection, if I don't go to the bad sites then I don't need to worry so much, right? I am just curious when reading something new and strange that I haven't known before. And I can't help asking about it. That's all.

Well there is still the real danger of being re-directed via simple HTML code. This vulnerability exists as long as your browser has it enabled (e.g., Enable automatic redirection in Opera, similar wording on others). The strange thing is that this option does not even appear on the Security tab of Opera's preferences, instead it is found on the Network tab.

In earlier testing I have left it unchecked but it breaks too many websites these days. If the world would only employ competent web-slingers that would always create the alternate HTML code that says click here if your browser does not re-direct, well, it would be fine to leave it off. Sad to say, this is not the case.

This is one of those deadly features we have to live with.

[cannie]

Alexanrs, does it mean that if I use a router, my computer will hardly get infected?

In the first years Windows 98 was always in virus danger. I had to clean it several times using an antivirus, even being behind a router.

But hackers always try to hurt the current OS of Microsoft, the world leader in computing, not the abandoned ones or the minoritary Linux distros. Even XP is by far less attacked now than three years ago, in special after SP2.

Total security doesn't exist in any field of our lives and any working OS is always in danger. That's why the best security is having your Windows 98 installed at least in two drives, so that if the one fails you may use the other. It is also convenient to have also a third drive (or a folder containing a copy of C:\Windows) to be used to compare with the current one and restore or delete anything which could have been deleted or downloaded without your consent. ComparatorPro is an excellent program for this purpose.

You may find the way to do it in a few minutes here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=118623

Even when in that post the procedure is called "cloning", in fact you obtain a real multiple install, having the possibility of using any of the drives by easily editing Autoexec.bat, Config.sys and Msdos.sys, or booting any of them using a very simple floppy in which you only have to copy the 5 C:\ root files, conveniently edited to match the drive you want to be booted.

And of course it pays to preserve periodical compressed copies of everything on CD, at least once every month. At times you find that something doesn't work any more and you don't even know since when. This way you may go back to any precedent moment in which everything was OK.

Windows 98 SE keeps being an excellent OS by itself, and the best friend of XP if you use doubleboot.

HTH

[Sfor]

In case of a LAN ARP poisoning attack Windows 9x systems are difficult to defend against. Static ARP entries are not working as expected. Setting a static entry just makes it not to time out. Such an entry will be overwritten by the attacker, and then it will remain that way. This problem has not been solved, so far.

The NT based systems are much better in this case. A static ARP entry will remain as set, ignoring all the ARP poisoning packets.

There are trojans poisoning the ARP tables of other LAN computers. They are modyfying the HTML code by adding redirections to spam or dangerous sites. If one computers in the LAN gets infected, other computers can be affected as well. The NT based systems can be easily protected through a static ARP entry for the internet gateway. The 9x computers can not be protected that way.