A guide: How to outlive the bad guys: Or “Less is best” Or “Don’t use crap software”

By Merle Nicholson, Tampa PC Users Group
merlenic@tampabay.rr.com

This is my own personal opinion on how to protect your computer from the bad stuff on the internet and also how to protect yourself from the worst of all … yourself. It’s a dissertation on how I keep my own PCs successfully running smoothly and relatively trouble free. So if you agree or disagree, I hope you may find something of use here.

• Have a hardware internet firewall.
• Have a good quality anti-virus installed, running and kept up to date, always.
• Don’t use instant messaging (IM) or file sharing programs.
• Don’t use gaming sites where a continuous connection is required.
• Never open any email without first knowing or checking on the source; delete all others without reading them.
• Never open or run any email attachment unless you personally know the source and trust them. (And know where you can find them).
• Don’t install any crap software.
• Disable “convenience” resident programs.
• Periodically review your startup program list and also your running processes and at least attempt to investigate and document their original authorship.
• Never install any software to “fix” a software problem or an operating system problem. (See 7)

Right off, after reading my list, you’re going to say .. “I have a teenager. He/She will make my life miserable without IM and Kaaza.” Well, I had a couple of teenagers once myself and you certainly have my sympathy. There’s only one solution to this problem. They need their own PC. Yes, set up so they can’t use yours and can’t access yours through your network, and when theirs dies or otherwise get unusable, reformat and restore from a restoration CD. And make them reinstall their own programs. They’ll be better, humbler adults for it. Upgrade everyone to Windows XP Home so you have security features so they can be blocked from access to your own computer and also suffer less from crashes.

An alternative – and a good one – is to set up XP with multiple accounts, one for each user and restrict theirs so they cannot install programs. They must go to an administrator (you) to install. This is not ideal, because you’ll have to give in and install some crap software and you’re on your way to software hell, but at a more controlled pace.

1) Instant Messaging and file sharing .. Don’t. I’ve even renamed my Microsoft Instant Messenger executable and substituted a 0 byte executable of the same name. That prevents it from running at all. Same for any file sharing program. You’re putting your system at risk by using them. Eat more vegetables, exercise, reduce your red meat consumption, and refuse to share files.

2) Software that fixes software. Registry cleaners, software that eliminates duplicate .DLL’s (who cares!), Ad-Aware, software firewalls, Norton Systemworks etc, etc. You don’t need them. My own rule: If I want my PC to run trouble-free, I need LESS software, not more. Why add software to fix the bad software I’ve installed? Go through your Add/Remove Software list and make sure you’re still using everything! Uninstall if you don’t! This will free up more hard drive space than a “cleaner” ever will. The registry “bloat” you’ve heard about is pretty much a myth. Don’t install crap software, and your registry won’t have any crap in it. It’s just data in a file - a database. Windows accesses what is asked of it, and doesn’t know about the extra crap in it.

Most of the “crap software” has one thing in common. They’re “always on”. They start up when Windows starts and run “resident”. They provide a “hook” or a “monitor” to accomplish something when needed. Anti-virus works this way, but so does IM and things like MS Office’s “Fast Find”, which is of value only when you’re using it, not all of the time. As time goes on, more and more of these things get installed, and pretty soon, you’re experiencing crashes or simply a PC that is too slow to be useful to you. You don’t always have to uninstall the program to get rid of the offending resident. You can easily disable Office’s Fast Find from the Startup in MSConfig, for instance.

People have paid me very good money to fix PC’s that to them are just “broken”. If they run at all, they run so slowly they might as well be broken. When I get the PC the first thing I look at is the number of icons in the system tray. Invariably, the system tray is loaded up (say more than 6), and if I find RealPlayer and ZoneAlarm, I know that I’m in for a lot of work.

3) Good software you don’t need. Fast Find, Quicken Bill Minder, MS Scheduler, RealPlayer, Kaaza and Zone Alarm fall in this category. Replace ZoneAlarm with a hardware firewall. If you MUST have RealPlayer, at least disable the windows startup, but I think Windows Media Player will do most of us just as well, and it least it goes away when closed. You put your PC at great risk using any file sharing programs, and the goal here is to greatly reduce all resident programs. At least learn to remove file sharing from being resident, launch it when needed and close it out when not needed.

Other examples of good resident programs you don’t need are like my scanner utility that used to load with Windows. This thing sat in my system tray and shuts off the light tube after 10 minutes of no use. Because the scanner lacks an on/off switch! So I’ve killed the resident program and I unplug the scanner! I use my scanner, but maybe a fraction of a percent of power on time; why run it all the time? Likewise, a resident program detects when I connect my Fujifilm camera. It was in my system tray just to launch the camera picture viewing program. Duh! I can click on the viewer program icon when I need it.

3) Hardware firewalls. This device sits between your cable modem and your PC. It blocks intruders very effectively. It’s programmable from your own web browser, but as far as I know, they are suitable right out of the box with no programming necessary unless you’re running a web server or you’re doing file sharing. If you’re doing file sharing, some port(s) must be opened up (exposed) to the Internet. Some firewalls are preprogrammed to open up for the most popular programs. That they need to be opened up in the first place should tell you something about the risk of file sharing!

The real advantage of hardware firewalls is that they also provide wired and wireless networking within your home or business. You can find these high quality devices as low as $50. Look for them in weekly newspaper sales.

Finally: I think I’m pretty successful in keeping my computers trouble free. Here’s my criteria for selecting software.

I buy and install only software that I feel will be productive for me. If I install, use it and find that I’m not totally happy with it, I uninstall it immediately. I’d never install a utility program that purports to “fix” something. After installing any software, I immediately check the system tray and also check the running processes list to make sure I have not installed a resident program. If it has a resident program, I find some way to disable it or I simply uninstall the whole thing.

I use the major brands of anti-virus. I have registered copies of Norton Anti-Virus, McAfee Online and AVG free version. I scrupulously keep all of them up to date at least weekly. When my notebook is not connected to my network, and therefore not connected to the Internet, I may disable active anti-virus checking.

I’m very, very cautious with all mail and attachments and newsgroups. I probably delete most files sent by friends, unless I specifically have discussed the purpose with them and am expecting the file. Don’t bother sending me jokes, I delete them. Everything questionable is deleted. I have the Internet security setting such that nothing can be downloaded without my knowledge. I never accept anything automatically downloaded from any website, never, ever. My mail message rules are very large and set to move anything questionable to the delete folder. u