Running XP with no firewall,anti-virus or update, And pc is fine!

[Tripredacus]

I am now using no firewall, no antivirus or anti trojan, spyware of anykind. I have medium nlited xp with no security udptate. (only Service back 2 build). It has been 2 weeks and yesterday I did a manual anti-virus scan, the result: nothing.

How is that possible ?, because I dont use internet explore and the bare minimum ms services ( about a dozen).

I was surprise to see that with only the service pack I was worm and virus bulletproof.

My conclusion is that security is best achieved by computer skills rather than by a ton of security software.

Yes I have never run anti-virus on a computer since 1997. The only time I used a firewall was when I had first got broadband but I got rid of that and went hardware. I don't even have service pack 1 installed on mine.

The easiest way to keep a clean running system is to NOT GO TO PRON SITES EVAR. then you will be fine.

I have had ONE virus on my computer (the one I made in 2001) and it was one that I put on there myself.

These are the programs I use to clean infections of any sort:

-SysInternals Filemon

-SysInternals Procexp

-PE Explorer

-UltraEdit

-Regedit

sometimes i break down and use HJT...

[albator]

@RJARRRPCGP

I said most services where turnoff, so exploit are off too.

[Zxian]

@albator - You don't need to disable services in order to gain the security. Like jcarle has said several times, keeping your system up to date is all that's needed to keep it secure on the net.

[eyeball]

why how much ram are you running on? i thought everyone these days had a minimum of 1GB

why risk it? its not worth it for the sake of 15-20mb extra ram usage from a firewall or AV, i could understand if we were all on p100's with 32mb ram but come on its 2007 and 2GB of ram is the norm these days!

What risk?

you are so naive

[jcarle]

why risk it? its not worth it for the sake of 15-20mb extra ram usage from a firewall or AV, i could understand if we were all on p100's with 32mb ram but come on its 2007 and 2GB of ram is the norm these days!

What risk?

you are so naive

Goes to show just how little you know.

[eyeball]

then enlighten me

[Jeremy]

Guys, stop acting like kids, please? Jcarle, you know what risk, but it obviously doesn't apply to you due to your superior knowledge and experience, or whatever. Most people don't, so I don't see the purpose of dragging this on and bringing others down because their methods or (lack of proper methods) are different. There's nothing wrong with using a software firewall or anti-virus, either. Some people think that just because they don't have Norton installed that their OS will be hosed. If you can't make them see the light, so push someone who doesn't want to be moved. Let them waste their money and time listening to some tech guy at their local service shop. They'll likely throw Ad-Aware and AVG on their system. The world continues to spin.

[gunsmokingman]

eyeball

why how much ram are you running on? i thought everyone these days had a minimum of 1GB

I have 768 on my computer, but you are right 15 to 40 MB of ram to have a security software running

is reasonable even with 512 of ram.

RJARRRPCGP

I'm serious, port 135 and 445 are open by default! That was very smart, Microsoft!

Unless the ISP is blocking those ports, you're probably gonna get attacked!

Expect to eventually get this from Windows, "The system is shutting down, because the RPC service terminated unexpectedly." and etc. or similar.

And likely Windows file corruption. It's likely that you're gonna get often occurring DOSes.

If you have XP SP2 the firewall turned on by default. Microsoft released a fix for

the RPC problem about a month before it happen. I remeber it because on Longhorn

builds 4008 you had to use the XP fix to stop the problem.

I agree with jcarle and Zxian to keep XP updated, jcarle know what he doing

so we should take what he says seriously.

Myself I only use XP or Vista firewall and IE and never had a problem.

Jeremy does make a good point about it there money.

[RJARRRPCGP]

I'm serious, port 135 and 445 are open by default! That was very smart, Microsoft!

Unless the ISP is blocking those ports, you're probably gonna get attacked!

Expect to eventually get this from Windows, "The system is shutting down, because the RPC service terminated unexpectedly." and etc. or similar.

And likely Windows file corruption. It's likely that you're gonna get often occurring DOSes.

You will only ever have this issue if you do not keep your windows up to date.

I dunno, because there seems to be often occurring zero-day exploits!

After Blaster in 2003, came Sasser in 2004. That's the reason SP2 comes with a firewall!

Edited April 27, 2007 by RJARRRPCGP

[cluberti]

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion on the subject, with no one opinion being better than another. I personally prefer to have a firewall at my egress point, firewalls on clients and servers inside my network, and antivirus and antispyware installed (not realtime) that scans nightly on machines while I'm sleeping. Do I need all of this? Probably not - but it'll come in handy when I do. And if I don't ever, I'm not sure I'm missing much. Coding, compiling, and making RDP connections to other machines might take CPU power, but memory hungry they generally aren't. Plus Vista and Longhorn are very good about using every last bit of free resources for caching, so having those things installed generally doesn't seem to make the system perform (at least in my perception) any better or worse than not having those things installed and enabled.

[Zxian]

/me agrees with cluberti.

I think the main point of this subject is that you can use Windows without additional security software. Whether or not you choose to is a question of comfort level.

[Jeremy]

I think the last two posts sum it up and finish it off.

[eyeball]

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion on the subject, with no one opinion being better than another. I personally prefer to have a firewall at my egress point, firewalls on clients and servers inside my network, and antivirus and antispyware installed (not realtime) that scans nightly on machines while I'm sleeping. Do I need all of this? Probably not - but it'll come in handy when I do. And if I don't ever, I'm not sure I'm missing much. Coding, compiling, and making RDP connections to other machines might take CPU power, but memory hungry they generally aren't. Plus Vista and Longhorn are very good about using every last bit of free resources for caching, so having those things installed generally doesn't seem to make the system perform (at least in my perception) any better or worse than not having those things installed and enabled.

this does just sum it up perfectly, Cluberti i have so much respect for you

[andywrob]

Whilst I do agree that you are being very cautious with the sites that you visit and of course taking care with all email attachments (and of course not clicking on links in junk emails), have you thought that perhaps the reason you are not getting any problems is (and this is only a thought) but if you are using a wireless router, this in itself may be heavily firewalled.

The reason I say this, is that I tried that very test. At one point my wireless router packed in, so I had to use my old SAGEM tiscali modem, which was a direct usb connection, and no firewall of any kind. Within half an hour, quite a few files appeared on the c drive, and when I did a search of the C drive using "Files Created Today", at least 5 new ones appeared in System32 with very suspicios filenames, eg xyxyyxfffs.exe or dgfgfgfgf.dll

Having said that, I imagine it is more as you say, that you are perhaps using a wireless router with built in protection, aswell as of course regular microsoft updates, which does indeed prove that perhaps you can save the high prices demanded by some of the anti virus and firewall software companies, especially Kapersky, which is very over priced compared to Norton.

By the way PANDA make antivirus and firewall software, excellent value and excellent product.

[Ponch]

No, I dont have a router, all my ports are open

No software firewall, no hardware firewall

Welcome to the forums, andywrob. Maybe read the entire thread before posting ? Or if you were replying to someone other than the thread starter, maybe let us know. Surely you were not replying to any of the last posts that say that all is summed up and finished after those 3 pages...