TSGL: Antispyware Win2K

Fri Mar 2 12:42:32 EST 2007

This is a condensation of an article written by Mark Snyder which 
appeared in Neat Net Tricks Premium, issue 138, 2/28/07. There are no 
easily available archives for you to access the article and I was 
reluctant to copy it here completely but the preceding issue of NNT 
asked readers to forward a copy to their friends to increase readership. 
So I guess I'm stretching a point by forwarding this but it's 
interesting and applicable. I've shortened it a lot.

You can subscribe to NNT at http://www.neatnettricks.com/ I think it's 
about $12/year.

***************************
Having already in these pages taken such controversial, i.e. "crazy" 
stances such as defending spam and even AOL(!), it seemed only expected 
that I might now suggest that antivirus and anti-spyware applications 
are not only unnecessary but a waste of your computer's resources. So, 
on September 2, 2006 I disabled all security applications with the 
exception of my firewall. I did not, however, put my $3,000.00 in 
computer equipment at risk simply to write an article for this 
publication nor did I undertake this action without serious 
consideration. It was simply that I was tired of the cost, both in 
dollars and computer resources that this security was exacting on me and 
my equipment. I suspected that much, if not all, of this security 
paranoia was being created by the very entities that claimed to prevent it.

Do I still have a computer? Is it riddled nearly unusable with virus and 
spyware? Have I lost my mind? Read on and decide for yourself.

Fear can also be used by companies (and governments) to support and 
promote actions and policies that otherwise might be ignored. For 
example, while many malware alarms are legitimate, I have the feeling 
that, all too often, the purpose of the warnings is to advertise the 
company's software by creating paranoia rather than as a public service.

The Pew Group published a study in which 92 percent of 1,000 PC owners 
interviewed admitted to having various software programs installed on 
their computers at an average cost of $129.00 Of this same number, only 
seven percent could actually recall having had their computer infected 
before or since having installed the software. Furthermore, of those who 
reported using security software in an active (always on) mode, fewer 
than one percent reported having ever seen a warning that the software 
had stopped an attack. Yet, we all continue to purchase or download and 
install the latest most powerful antivirus programs, antispyware 
programs, anti-trojan programs, adware blocking programs, and on and on. 
In fact, not only do we install these programs on our computers but we 
are told that we must keep them running in "background" or "active 
mode," allow them to start as soon as our computer boots, and even allow 
the ability for them to "phone home" at will (a true security breach) so 
that they can automatically install updates. But even that is yet not 
enough. We find that we now must have a "layered defense," (something 
even I promoted two years ago in an article for this same publication) 
meaning that maybe having just one of each of these programs is not 
enough! And who is telling us this? For the most part, the makers of the 
software programs themselves.

In recent years, there has been a lot of debate over whether there is 
any need to run antispyware applications or even an antivirus program. 
In fact, according to the well-respected security expert George Ou, 
"Running an antivirus program on a personal computer is like having a 
bomb squad inspect a suspicious package inside the house right next to 
you." He continues, "Running antivirus or third party security software 
such as antispyware programs and firewalls makes you even less safe!" 
http://blogs.zdnet.com/OU/?p=234&tag=nl.e622 In this same article, Mr. 
Ou claims to have run personal computers for over fifteen years using 
some form or another of Windows and has never had a virus on his 
computer. He claims that even his family computer runs without an 
antivirus or antispyware program and has never experienced any problems. 
His findings are backed up by Adrian Kingsley- Hughes, writing in the 
November 15, 2006 issue of Zdnet. Mr. Kingsley-Hughes argues that an 
over- reliance on security software (which, as you may have by now 
concluded if you have read this far, is not all that secure) creates 
"sloppy thinking". Using "common sense", he says, will go much further 
in protecting your computer than relying on software programs.

I agree. It is well known that most true computer experts and IT 
professionals do not use security software as such. They have long known 
that the disease is worse than the cure and that the way to protect your 
computer is by securing it through such means as limiting administrative 
rights, etc. In a quick and admittedly unscientific survey that I took 
for this article, only two out of 16 IT professionals and three out of 
22 qualified experts I contacted use any type of antivirus or 
antispyware programs running on their home computers. This is not to say 
that they do not use programs to scan for spyware or viruses; but rather 
than running them actively, they use them only on demand to manually 
scan. All admitted that the drain on computer resources far outweighs 
any potential benefit received from having these programs running in the 
background and increasing the potential threats to their systems.

So, armed with all of the above information, I disabled all of my many 
security programs other than my firewall on September 2, 2006. As of 
this date, January 4, 2007, they are still disabled. I surfed the Web as 
much as I always do, visited the same type of sites that I always do, 
downloaded around thirty-five programs, many for future NNT reviews but 
also a large number of freeware programs. I used my computer no 
differently than I ever do. I am using a DSL connection and am on line 
24/7, and generally on the Internet an average of 7 hours per day. The 
only disclaimer I do need to make is that I do not use peer-to-peer file 
sharing programs nor am I a connoisseur of pornography, both types of 
computer use known to increase one's risk of infection. I scanned my 
computer once a week for viruses using AVG 7.5 and scanned for spyware 
once a week using A Squared, Ewido, CounterSpy, Spyware Doctor, 
ZeroSpyware, and SpySweeper, simply to make sure that I could report my 
results as honestly and thoroughly as possible. In four months of use I 
found zero viruses, and the only spyware discovered was an occasional 
tracking cookie (Atwola and About.com) which were easily removed. That's 
it. Period. What I did find, however, was that by not having these 
security programs load at start-up my boot time decreased from 
approximately 107 seconds to 33 seconds and my computer responded as if 
I had just doubled my CPU and RAM. RAM usage alone dropped by 20 percent 
and on my machine that was like installing another 200MB of RAM!

Do I recommend that each of you reading this do likewise and disable all 
of your security software? That is for you to decide.
********************************************

I share Snyder's opinion and have a NAT router (includes a hardware 
firewall function) for my Internet connection and run the free Zone 
Alarm firewall on each machine on the network. But I still use AVG free 
antivirus and Windows Defender, also free, as my only active, 
continuously running "anti" ware on each machine. I scan occassionally 
with AdAware, Spybot and AVG AntiSpyware and can't remember the last 
time I saw any kind of alert except tracking cookies. And one of the 
machines on my network is still running XP, SP1 with NO updates since it 
was bought. We refer to it around here as "the grand experiment".

So my conclusion is, if you can't quite bring yourself to "cut the cord" 
at least go the free route and save some bucks.

H Davis

Geoff Glave wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Just wondering what anti-spyware app people are liking for Windows 
> 2000 these days? I was a big fan of MS-AS & then defender, but they 
> don't support Win2K any more, so I'm looking for suggestions.
>
> Cheers,
> Geoff Glave
> Vancouver, Canada
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Don't waste time standing in line---try shopping online. Visit 
> Sympatico / MSN Shopping today! http://shopping.sympatico.msn.ca
>
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-- 
H Davis   hdavis1 at gmail.com