My PC Security

It is always a big question amongst pc (albeit windows) users on how to protect themselves from viruses, worms, spywares, network attacks, and sorts. You get the idea. I don't know whether the combination I use is the perfect combination or not, but so far its working great (or so I believe).

My Choice of Anti-Virus
01. Kaspersky Anti-Virus – I Used KIS 2009 on 4 pcs, loved it, but its not for everyone, of course its not for those who don't want to pay.
so the free alternatives I tried over the years
02. AVG Free
03. Avast AV – Personal Edition
04. Avira AntiVir Personal
AVG is great, proven and loved by many, I personally dont like AVAST, it provides so little options to customize, though it may work great under those settings, but it couldnt win my heart.
Recently I tried Avira AntiVir Personal, I liked it, and using it right now, its light, faster scanning engine, has almost all the features of AVG,
Features Comparison

Here is a screen shot which tells us the Memory and CPU usage of AVIRA AntiVir Personal, and the settings I am using below.




My Choice of Firewall
Never depended on Windows’s Built-in firewall, never liked it either, I have my reasons, but those are mine only, other people may disagree.
I have tried few firewalls before, I have 2 hardware firewalls (2 sets of router) and software firewalls for my pcs. These are what i tried so far.
01. Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, the firewall part is ok, if not the best, but I had some compatibility problem with other softwares so had to uninstall it.
after that i tried two firewall
02. ZoneAlarm Free Edition
03. Comodo Firewall
Both of them are free, but after testing and using both of them quite a while i chose Comodo Firewall. Again, memory and cpu usage was a deciding factor, along with online reviews. Comodo also provides all of ZoneAlarm professionals features for a very interesting price, FREE.

The settings I use for comodo are these (taken from http://www.raymond.cc/forum/tutorials/11420-comodo-firewall-tutorial.html)













Other Tools I use

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.40
its free and scans faster for malwares, spywares
and
Windows Defender
Though I personally dont like M$ anti-virus products, I use defender cause sometimes it serves its purpose, Non-genuine windows users will have a hard time installing it. Although there are workarounds.
The Following Tutorial has been taken from http://fmshaon.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-install-windows-defender-final.html
there are some tricky steps through which you can install Windows Defender Final even in your pirated copy of windows XP bypassing the genuine windows validation. You just have to follow the following steps one by one:

1. At first, download Windows Defender Final from the Microsoft Site. Alternatively you can download it directly from the link below (32 bit or 64 bit processor):
   
   • Download Windows Defender Final 32-bit
   • Download Windows Defender Final 64-bit
2. Then download Orca (a .msi package editor) from the link below:
   
   • Download Orca in ZIP Format
3. Now extract Orca, you have just downloaded, using Winzip or any file decompressing tool you like. And then install it (Orca.msi) in your PC.
4. Now right click on the WindowsDefender.msi, you have downloaded in step 1, and select 'Edit with Orca'. Then Windows Defender will be opened with Orca as the following window popped up:
   
5. In the Orca’s left pane, click on CustomAction.
   
6. Now right click on the CHECK_WGA in the right pane...
   and then select 'Drop Row'.
   
7. Again on the left pane of Orca, just click on the 'Dialog'.
   
8. And select CheckWGA on the right pane...
   
9. Then double click on the Attribute value of CheckWGA in order to change its value from 2(two) to 0(zero).
   
   
10. Finally save the modified WindowsDefender.msi from File -> Save. (you have to select save, not save as).
    
11. Now install Windows Defender Final by running the WindowsDefender.msi file, you have just modified. And then you are done!

Some Tweaks that also prevents spreading viruses/worms/trojans, etc
01. Disabling Autorun (Removable USB/thumb drives use the Autorun feature to load files when the drives are plugged into the USB port. Malware exploits the Autorun feature to spread from thumb drive to PC. Disable the autorun feature to prevent malware from spreading.)

Here's How:

1. The easiest and most effective means to truly disable autorun can be done via this simple autorun registry hack:
   REGEDIT4
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
   @="@SYS:DoesNotExist"
   
2. 
   To use this method, Open Notepad and copy/paste the following into a text file:
   REGEDIT4
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
   @="@SYS:DoesNotExist"
   Save the file as something.reg. (You have to be sure to change the "Save File as Type" to "All Files" before saving, or Windows will try to save it as a .txt even if you typed in .reg.
   
3. 
   Locate the file you just saved and double-click the file to run it. You will receive a prompt asking if you want to add the data to the registry. Click yes to allow the modification.
   
4. 
   The above method nulls any request for autorun.inf and works on XP Home or Pro, as well as Windows Vista. Credit for this tip goes to Nick Brown.
   

File: Disable Autorun.reg
Some Registry tweaks
1 Run This First
2 Folder Options