Re: Software advice

Konrad Gaertner <kgaertner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> appears to have caused the
following letters to be typed in news:43B95F07.B8D0CD3B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> Bernard Peek wrote:
>>
>> Microsoft makes security patches available automatically for Windows
>> 2000 and XP. Home users should have their systems configured to install
>> those automatically, unless they really think they know Windows well
>> enough to be able to tell exactly which patches to apply. Anyone who
>> isn't patching their Internet-connected systems is a menace. If I had my
>> way their ISPs would close their accounts and disconnect them without
>> compensation or refund.
>
> Finally, someone is starting to answer the questions I asked in my first
> post. What exactly should be enabled or disabled? Is the XP firewall
> good enough to protect my dialup connection, or should I use ZoneAlarm or
> something else? If I do use a different firewall, should I disable the
> XP firewall? If I don't want to pay for Norton, should I uninstall all
> of it, or can some parts safely co-exist with other anti-virus programs
> (like AVG Free)? What's a good ad-blocker, since I can't find the
> manufacturer of my current one (Spyblocker Software)?

I've had good luck with ZoneAlarm on XP boxes outside of my workplace's
physical network (where a Cisco hardware firewall does the honors), and
without disabling XP SP2's native version. AVG Free works fine with XP.
For real-time ad-blocking, I'm still using The Proxomitron, even though
there have been no updates in a while due to the death of the author.
Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware are excellent for cleanup.

> I should probably stop using Netscape 4 for everything, so what's
> a good newsreader with a similar look and feel? (I don't like the
> newer Netscapes, and I'll probably use Firefox for browsing.)

I can't speak for newsreaders with a similar look and feel to Netscape, but
I am very fond of Xnews, which is very powerful and freeware. Some people
may recommend Agent, which I don't find nearly as easy to use.

Terribly sorry about prolonging the thread drift about OS evangelism, when
what you obviously needed was an assist with using the one you have. I'm
afraid there's really nothing that can be done about it; sometimes I think
some people will shout "Thorwald Akhbar!" at the slightest provocation.

--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Take THAT, Daniel Lin, Mark Sadek, James Lin & Christopher Chung!

.

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