Posted on 02/18/2007 8:50:31 AM PST by proudofthesouth
I'm with you. I have six Dells around the house or off with my kids, and never have any problems. You just have to protect them with antivirus, antispyware, firewalls, and constant checks for infections.
Plus you have to keep cleaning out the temp files and backup files and run defrag. Plus I clean and compact the Registry fairly often. I had one Dell notebook a few years ago that ran hot, but the rest of them have been fine.
If you clean and polish the Registry you have to be careful, but I've never had any trouble. I also have taken to removing the hotfix backups after they've been on for a while. I only once had a problem, when the hotfix for changing Australian daylight savings after the Olympics back to normal required the backup from the earlier fix, but I managed to clean that one up with a little help from the maker of the hotfix backup removal tool.
Incidentally, Microsoft has fixed the system for the new daylight saving schedule in 2007, but I understand there will be problems fixing the Sun Java files for the new daylight savings, since apparently they write this information in a variety of places all over the computer, depending on which files you happen to have installed. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I've never heard a sound from Zone Alarm.
I had a D-Link wireless router. After 3 or 4 months, it went "poof!" with a flash of blue, one night.
I mostly used it as a hardwired hub, with only one wireless card accessing it.
I don't think that's zone alarm. It will give you a popup warning every time it thinks a hacker has attacked, but you can easily turn that feature off under Alerts & Logs > Main.
Whew... Thanks Jim for freep mailing me... he has AVG NOT Avast! LOL!!!! How embarrassing... :) LOL!!!
I always get those 2 confused!!! because they are free.... LOL
I'm not familiar with D-Link. I use a Linksys wireless router with full security (encryption + SSID turned OFF, and limit access to only my MAC address). If anyone wants to get in, they must crack all three.
My question is do I still need to go out and buy a better firewall (like Panda)?
Absolutely. Host based firewalls suck.
what kind of router do you have?
Mine's a Microsoft wireless router but any of the current crop will do the same thing. They are almost all Unix or Linux based.
Yep. Go to this site and do a bit of studying. There is a wizard built into one of the sites for you.
http://support.dlink.com/Emulators/di624_revC/adv_virtual.html
I'm a linksys (at home) and Checkpoint firewall guy myself.
D-Link DI-624 is very good IMHO for a normal home use that only requires 1 WLAN port and up to 4 Ethernet ports... ;)
After CompUSA wouldn't honor their rebate offer, I certainly won't shop there again, and I'd just as soon buy online.
If you Google "HP 510 review" maybe you can find something out about it. It must be a brand new release, because I don't see any user reviews offhand.
I would get a $50 router with a built in firewall. That way the firewall is completely separate from the computer. Even if you don't use the router, the NAT firewall combination can save you lots of problems down the road. If you have Broadband, definitely get the router.
I have this Router, It's very good... when you get it look at the revision on the bottom, go to d-link.com and see if there is a firmware update... enjoy.
Yep, that's a perfect choice. I like wired routers, because most don't know how to use the wireless security. Just one more thing to worry about.
But if you want wireless, there are plenty of good choices like the D-Link out there. I am partial to Linksys, because they have a big hacker community and with special firmware can be made to add features.
That one has (1) wireless connection. ;)
It's very easy to setup, it has a Wizard, you make sure you set-up a strong password and that you setup a key for your wep...(I know its not the most secure thing, but its better than nothing like my neighbors!) LOL
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