Dennis Kenyon
Thread Starter
If built in OS anti-virus were clothes, it would be like walking around in only your undies all day.
The nature of attacks has/is changing and the days of just looking for "a virus" has passed.
Applications have exploits and can be used to gain access to your infomation, signature-based software does not detect this.
Consumer endpoint protection lags what is in the commerical space because there is an inherant complexity to good security that is beyond the grasp of most mere mortals.
ESET is probably the best of the normal lot, Cylance has some additional capability to address the more creative style of attacks.
If you've never had a false positive then your security probably isn't any good.
No software will solve the problen on its own, you need layers, one of which is common sense and not loading or clicking on anything you see because it looks legit.
The best measure you can take is enabling multi-factor authentication on all your services that permit it, so devices are forced to authenticate at regular intervals and any new attempts require approval from a mobile-based authenticator app (google and Microsoft have one, among others) or via a OTP text sent to your phone.
This is a good prevention and early warning method.
Belt and braces.
Most people don't properly backup their devices (to secure locations - dropbox not included) and have their lives (photos etc) on them, which is valuable data.
Everyone is affected by this, every service you use is constantly under some form of attack and everyones details have already been stolen from 1 or more known attacks.
The nature of attacks has/is changing and the days of just looking for "a virus" has passed.
Applications have exploits and can be used to gain access to your infomation, signature-based software does not detect this.
Consumer endpoint protection lags what is in the commerical space because there is an inherant complexity to good security that is beyond the grasp of most mere mortals.
ESET is probably the best of the normal lot, Cylance has some additional capability to address the more creative style of attacks.
If you've never had a false positive then your security probably isn't any good.
No software will solve the problen on its own, you need layers, one of which is common sense and not loading or clicking on anything you see because it looks legit.
The best measure you can take is enabling multi-factor authentication on all your services that permit it, so devices are forced to authenticate at regular intervals and any new attempts require approval from a mobile-based authenticator app (google and Microsoft have one, among others) or via a OTP text sent to your phone.
This is a good prevention and early warning method.
Belt and braces.
Most people don't properly backup their devices (to secure locations - dropbox not included) and have their lives (photos etc) on them, which is valuable data.
Everyone is affected by this, every service you use is constantly under some form of attack and everyones details have already been stolen from 1 or more known attacks.
One trick is to dual boot with the same operating system - the first one fails, go to the other. Another is to create a D: drive and move all your data to it (and the paging file), then copy it off to another hard drive regularly, keep it in your pocket. If Windoze falls over, you then don't lose it, as it places your data on the C: drive which is lost if you have to reformat it. All I use extra these days is F-Prot.
As you always have, you impress with your knowledge. I lost you at the "dual boot" statement.
Being a non computer wizard, and will always be, after many years of seeing the caption of windoze encountering an "unexpected error" and do I want to report it to Microsoft (FFS) I left windoze and went to IOS, 10 years later and have NEVER had a problem, NEVER. Changed computers 3 times, everything transfers, so simple. Plus not seen any windoze shops for assistance, like Apple does (for free most times).
Join Date: Nov 2000
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I hear you - but when I used to service Macs I found that they had as many problems in different ways - for a techie the problem is that they don't let you mess with anything - at least with other systems you can timker. But you're quite right, Macs work more often than not, but they have less control over the hardware these days (they used to design everything). I would have changed myself, but when they say that some types of software work seamlessly across platforms, I can never quite believe them - and Microsft are the worst. If you've ever wondered why you have to reboot a Windoze machine in mid-afternoon it's because Word, etc do not hand the memory back after you've closed them down and the total available gets less and less over the day. Go figure.
Dual booting means have two operating systems on the same hard drive and you make a choice when the machine starts. In my case I have Windows loaded twice - an old trick I learned with NT.
Dual booting means have two operating systems on the same hard drive and you make a choice when the machine starts. In my case I have Windows loaded twice - an old trick I learned with NT.
Well, since we opened that can of worms.
I am a developer in my second life. Years ago, when Apple changed to Intel, I switched too, because frankly I hate to tinker with operating systems, but sometimes I have to. My list of preferences are: A Mac for developing and other work and if I need a Windows machine, Parallels or VMWare for a Windows instance works like a charm. Especially since I don't have to use a preload with all the crapware. The hours I lost getting rid of Norton Antivirus on IBM or Lenovo machines. A Windows directly from Microsoft is way better than any preload. The pro version that is. Not the home version.
Macs just work and when I need to tinker with it; if you know your shell, you can do almost anything with them. It is a Unix after all with most of the bells and whistles. But Apple could make a more modern desktop, but otherwise I like it.
For servers, Linux is the way to go. I deliberately avoid any software that requires Windows Servers. It just isn't worth the hassle. Desktop Linux is just not my piece of cake.
Windows 10 is the first version, I like in a long time (started with Windows 2 a rather used DOS). It is the most stable in a long time, but still spaghetti code unfortunately. My daughter uses a Surface Pro for compatibility reasons in school and that is a great piece of kit. But I had to tinker with it more than with my Mac in many years. Now that she knows the shell to restart or kill services, I am less in demand.
Mobile is iOS only here. Just to avoid the whole security problems of Android and the crapware of for example Samsung and apart from an iPhone 5 with a very hot battery, every single machine I ever owned from Apple still works and is in use. And that iPhone was used for parts to make another one work again. This text is written on a almost 11 years old MacBook Pro and it still does the trick for most of what I do. Some software does not work anymore on it and it is time to change, but since I have Timemachine, changing to a new Mac will be painless. Something like Timemachine is the one crucial piece of software I miss from Microsoft. It really is a game changer for me, because I had my share of HDD crashes and on a Mac, Timemachine just gives me a peace of mind.
Yes, there are disadvantages to not using all the Microsoft stack, but I can live with that.
My way to avoid security problems are: Every software I do not need anymore gets deleted. That is much easier on a Mac than on a Windows machine.
I try to avoid any "cool" software from obscure sources. If you stick with the AppStore, you should be fine.
I do not use Facebook.
My browsers are on the highest security setting and most of the time I deny all the cookies. Trackers are blocked, as are adds (afap).
And I don't use Facebook. Even my shadow account is now gone. To get even, Facebook deleted my WhatsApp account, too. (Just kidding, I don't know why WhatsApp it was deleted but I am good with that).
Never ever Facebook or Google logins either. Zoom just found out about the Facebook SDK.
Google only for things that are not important.
Until now, I had no problems, apart from the occasional phone call from a fellow with a heavy accent from Microsoft Security, who wants to talk about the virus on my computer.
The funniest moment was, when I told him, that I knew about the virus, since I had written it for them, I now he should finally pay up, what we agreed to.
On other occasions I was insulted quite a bit, when I told them after a while of trying to make me do things, that my Mac did not have a windows key.
I am happy with a Mac. If you like to tinker with computers, Macs are not the way to go. I don't.
I am a developer in my second life. Years ago, when Apple changed to Intel, I switched too, because frankly I hate to tinker with operating systems, but sometimes I have to. My list of preferences are: A Mac for developing and other work and if I need a Windows machine, Parallels or VMWare for a Windows instance works like a charm. Especially since I don't have to use a preload with all the crapware. The hours I lost getting rid of Norton Antivirus on IBM or Lenovo machines. A Windows directly from Microsoft is way better than any preload. The pro version that is. Not the home version.
Macs just work and when I need to tinker with it; if you know your shell, you can do almost anything with them. It is a Unix after all with most of the bells and whistles. But Apple could make a more modern desktop, but otherwise I like it.
For servers, Linux is the way to go. I deliberately avoid any software that requires Windows Servers. It just isn't worth the hassle. Desktop Linux is just not my piece of cake.
Windows 10 is the first version, I like in a long time (started with Windows 2 a rather used DOS). It is the most stable in a long time, but still spaghetti code unfortunately. My daughter uses a Surface Pro for compatibility reasons in school and that is a great piece of kit. But I had to tinker with it more than with my Mac in many years. Now that she knows the shell to restart or kill services, I am less in demand.
Mobile is iOS only here. Just to avoid the whole security problems of Android and the crapware of for example Samsung and apart from an iPhone 5 with a very hot battery, every single machine I ever owned from Apple still works and is in use. And that iPhone was used for parts to make another one work again. This text is written on a almost 11 years old MacBook Pro and it still does the trick for most of what I do. Some software does not work anymore on it and it is time to change, but since I have Timemachine, changing to a new Mac will be painless. Something like Timemachine is the one crucial piece of software I miss from Microsoft. It really is a game changer for me, because I had my share of HDD crashes and on a Mac, Timemachine just gives me a peace of mind.
Yes, there are disadvantages to not using all the Microsoft stack, but I can live with that.
My way to avoid security problems are: Every software I do not need anymore gets deleted. That is much easier on a Mac than on a Windows machine.
I try to avoid any "cool" software from obscure sources. If you stick with the AppStore, you should be fine.
I do not use Facebook.
My browsers are on the highest security setting and most of the time I deny all the cookies. Trackers are blocked, as are adds (afap).
And I don't use Facebook. Even my shadow account is now gone. To get even, Facebook deleted my WhatsApp account, too. (Just kidding, I don't know why WhatsApp it was deleted but I am good with that).
Never ever Facebook or Google logins either. Zoom just found out about the Facebook SDK.
Google only for things that are not important.
Until now, I had no problems, apart from the occasional phone call from a fellow with a heavy accent from Microsoft Security, who wants to talk about the virus on my computer.
The funniest moment was, when I told him, that I knew about the virus, since I had written it for them, I now he should finally pay up, what we agreed to.
On other occasions I was insulted quite a bit, when I told them after a while of trying to make me do things, that my Mac did not have a windows key.
I am happy with a Mac. If you like to tinker with computers, Macs are not the way to go. I don't.
