atw: Re: OT: Viruses

In that case, Stuart (B) I stand partially corrected.

But your suggestion only covers your incoming (not outgoing) E-mail.

I cannot see what great effort is involved in updating an antivirus signature
file by dialing up / logging in to your ISP by way of your antivirus tool
update facility.  It's almost all done for you.

Plus, with AVG for personal home use, it's free.
(Or the free McAfee one <http://www.mcafee.com/> for that matter,
although it is a bit US centric, without the Asia-Pacific area virus focus.)

My argument is why NOT have the virus protection installed, considering
the above.

The most efficiently written antiviral tools (unlike Norton) now have a
negligible system resource overhead.

Besides, given the way that the new viruses are being designed, a viewer
only approach is not going to protect you at all.  To display is to launch.

Giving yourself a false sense of security amounts to having no real
protection at all.

The main consideration is to keep up those backups - and to store every
second one off-site.

A house fire will clean out your hard drives better than any virus ever will.

Have a great weekend.

Sincerely and signing off for the moment,

Michael Granat
Write Ideas

At 16:51 24/9/2004, you wrote:
><snip>
>Huh? I said:
>   "I'm about to change ISP (from TPG to WestNet). I'm going to
>   try their spam- and virus-protection service, which adds up to
>   $30/year. My reasoning is that I've never lost work time to a
>   virus, but I've lost a huge amount of time over the years to
>   anti-virus software... Why not let the ISP handle it?"
>
>How is that arguing for no protection?
>
>I run ZoneAlarm and Ad-Aware, take backups (ahem, sometimes),
>and scan dubious attachments as required, which is once or twice
>a year. I use the virus-proof Word Viewer and Powerpoint Viewer
>to look at MS Office e-mail attachments. I use Opera instead IE.
>I used the Shields Up! site (https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) to
>check my PC for the basic security holes. I do use Outlook 2000,
>but should probably switch to a lighter, more secure mail client.
>My main protection is... (drumroll) viruses look like viruses!
>So I don't run them!
>
>I don't want to be an unpaid and underqualified network
>administrator in my not-so-spare time. That's why I say,
>don't stress, be careful, set things up right to start with,
>let the ISP handle the tedious business of keeping the
>antivirus software updated.
>
>Stuart

Michael E. Granat
(QGTWD) (FOTROTWYB!)
T/as Write Ideas
E-mail: mailto:writeideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: <http://home.pacific.net.au/~megranat/>
Without Prejudice.
E&OE. 

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