hope you all dont mind...............

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

I've been cyber helping people out for the last few days, sometimes I take for granted the programs I use or the shit I know thinking we all have access to the same software...............

figured I'd post this and if anyone wants to add useful info to it, great

bookmark this site: www.betanews.com
9 times out of 10 you will find worthwhile information on programs coming out or already out and it also has a sister site known as fileforum that grants you access to previous beta software that can sometimes be a goldmine....

free antivirus worth the time to download: AVG

free spyware program worth the time to d/l: microsoft antispyware (they bought it and reassembled it, but it kicks ass)

as far as firewalls go I cant recommend a software firewall, I have a hardware firewall, but I'm sure someone on here will have a few suggestions; service pack 2 which almost everyone with XP has now nearly been forced to install has a firewall, but I wouldnt count on it for hacker proof protection

peer guardian 2: www.methlabs.org ..............GET IT, bottom line
update it everyday, its worth its weight in gold

firefox: www.mozilla.org ...................if you arent already using it, start using it now, it's not bad at all

if you MUST use internet explorer at least download Deepnet Explorer from fileforum, it comes with several useful add ons to protect you from spyware/adware while browsing various sites

if you chat on yahoo: ytunnel, preferably ytunnel pro but that cost $$$, unless you can get a serial from someone who already has it, odds are you can...........lol (fat girl gave me hers for showing her my 6 pack, so I know some of you can get a freebie)

I wont even get into P2P in this thread, I figure you all have something that works for you

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

found this today good info on p2p for you downloaders

Teenager foils RIAA P2P lawsuit - [RIAA News]
Submitted by Forcefire on 9/27/2005 10:06:50 AM 3 Comments

The campaign by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to sue music downloaders has suffered a setback after the trade body lost a case in the US.
Candy Chan, a mother from Michigan, had been facing a heavy fine after she was sued for file sharing by Priority Records on behalf of Sony Music and Warner Brothers.
But the court has dismissed the case 'without prejudice', meaning that she cannot be prosecuted again.

The case began when Chan's IP address was found on a P2P network, along with an email address. But after the suit was filed Chan pointed out that the email address belonged to her 13 year-old daughter. She objected when the prosecution then tried to sue her child.
Judge Lawrence P Zatkoff said in the court report: "Chan opposed the motion and asserted that the plaintiffs used a 'shotgun' approach to pursue this action, threatening to sue all of Chan's children and engaging in abusive behaviour to attempt to utilise the court as a collection agency."
The case hinged on whether Chan was liable for her daughter's actions. The music industry argued that, since she had given the child a computer, Chan shared the liability. But the court rejected this view.

The RIAA has been suing people who download music illegally for more than two years and cases have been brought against children, students and even a corpse.
Some consumers have fought back, however. One even filed racketeering charges against the music industry under law s designed to combat organised crime and a pending anti-trust case.
The British Phonographic Industry has also begun suing UK file sharers.

[Spiderman]

Thats a very useful site dude!

[goldensamba]

For a software firewall ZoneAlarm is the best by far and they have a free version. For spyware and adware use AdAware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ and Spybot Search and Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html. These two tools can remove everything and monitor for new items. Also, you might try using Opera (it is now free http://www.opera.com or Mozilla's Firefox http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ These are both more secure than Internet Explorer and don't allow active x so things don't get installed without you knowing about them. My favorite happens to be opera.

Have fun!

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

actually the best software firewall is the one not mentioned, lol

peer guardian 2 can't be ignored................at all
period
everyone should have it, & use it
by far the best security for free to date

[chefmike]

Thanks for the links. I just downloaded the peerguardian2...some(possibly stupid) questions- do you run the peerguardian all the time , or is it only needed when downloading music, etc. I also already use zonealarm. And could anyone tell me, is there a reason why I shouldn't switch browsers, and keep using internet explorer? what are the advantages of opera and firefox. thanks in advance for any advice.

[bananix]

Many ppl aslo say that Peer Guardian is crap and doesn't protect you at all...i myself feel the same way...

Here's a good link site for p2p, software and some other cool websites.
http://sauli.cjb.cc/

[Evilhomer]

peerguardian doesn't allow me to access alot of websites like Yahoo for instance...

[tracy]

:) :) whoa hey johny you always got the best avatars in this board man

[chefmike]

after doing some further research, I decided to give firefox a try...the article on their website by the WSJ tech guy was pretty enthusiastic and informative

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

here's the deal with peer guardian 2
it's very protective, i would suggest running it when you do p2p, for everyday browsing it will block 90% of the stuff out there, you have to understand this thing is all about keeping you safe

as far as firefox goes you did the right thing installing it, right now it's one of the best browsers available, but be careful of the extensions available for it, not all of them are safe

I would recommend the NoScript extension for firefox
one of the best I've encountered, it completely blocks javascript from being used when you access a website until you allow the site permission to run it, again keeping you safe

[Lobo]

A good site to visit every so often is doxdesk.com
It will tell you as soon as the page loads if you have any parasites, what they actually do and how to get rid of them.
If you don't have anything bad in your hard drive all you'll see is the latest news about spyware etc.
It's a handy little site to visit if you suspect you have something lurking on your hard drive but aren't 100% sure.

[Ecstatic]

Best protection from hackers is having your computers NAT'd behind a good hardware firewall. The router I'm running has double firewall protection (NAT and SPI) plus 128-bit encryption. With a hardware firewall, only the firewall (router) is visible to the Net; the IP address is that of the router, not the PC. I have five PCs behind my firewall.

If you're running a hardware firefall, software firewalls are basically to protect you from yourself: opening your browser to malicious attacks (hence the caution against IE and ActiveX) and preventing your PC from serving malicious attacks (i.e., if you've gotten infected by a worm, allowing that worm to deliver email from your PC).

Good advice on AdAware and Spybot: I run both. If you run IE on XP, be sure to run SPII (it's worthwhile to custom install it). FF is better in many ways, though not all; I have to run IE simply because, as a web developer, I have to target the browser that 85% of the world uses.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

peer guardian 2 has a new website

phoenixlabs.org

shortcut to the latest pg2 is here: http://peerguardian.sf.net/pg2.html

they were attacked by some bastards, so they must be doing something right