Advice Request If you could pick only one program for protection.

[roger_m]

Then why bring it up, in a thread about single best app for protection?

It's quite simple. I was responding to your comment that "People are NOT safe with AV + good browsing habits. I know this from personal experience," to point out that, you actually can be safe with just a little bit of care. Note that I didn't say that I never will be infected, but that at this point in time, I've never been infected unless I opened an infected file.

 

[ebocious]

It's quite simple. I was responding to your comment that "People are NOT safe with AV + good browsing habits. I know this from personal experience," to point out that, you actually can be safe with just a little bit of care. Note that I didn't say that I never will be infected, but that at this point in time, I've never been infected unless I opened an infected file.

Fair enough. But as you pointed out, status quo is only temporary. And as I pointed out, people with AV and good browsing habits are getting infected. When Comcast's servers were presumably attacked in October of 2006, it was on the local news that 11 million computers were infected. I reimaged my machine three times (and never even had the chance to open a browser), before I realized it wasn't going to stop on its own.

Just because it's not happening to you personally doesn't mean a whole lot. There are over a billion computers on the Web today, and at least a third are believed to be infected right now (and that's not including Android phones or IoT devices). An identity is stolen every two seconds. Ask a professional security researcher if AV + safe browsing habits are enough. There are news blogs and more news blogs with a resounding NO.

I'm sorry if you believe I am mistaken because of your own personal experience. But with all the infections I deal with or read about not withstanding, you'll find it extremely difficult to convince me that my own personal experience never happened.

 

[Harlequin]

My pick would definitely be Macrium Reflect, it restores in minutes, no muss, no fuss, always reliable.

 

[oldschool]

This thread topic is similar to one like “What one book would you want with you if stranded on a deserted island?” The one app you would want, not what is the best.

Tick, tick, tick, tick ... ... locked!

 

[ebocious]

This thread topic is similar to one like “What one book would you want with you if stranded on a deserted island?” The one app you would want, not what is the best.

A lot of your suggestions are sound, but most if not all are not 100% effective, few are. So lets say which programs, that you may or may not use, do you think are the most bullet-proof, in other words which provide the closest to 100% protection?

Thats why I say Appgaurd, configured properly, and Voodoo Shield may be the closest. HM to Comodo with CS settings.

It may not have been stated in the opening, but the OP did clarify later that he is looking for closest to 100% protection.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

I am surprised nobody mentioned HitmanPro-Alert as their one choice.

I would it fully capable of protecting a system, especially with Safe Browsing, Anti-Keylogger, Risk Reduction systems, regular scans of HMP within it, and adding a lot more additional programs to the exploit mitigation.

 

[ebocious]

I am surprised nobody mentioned HitmanPro-Alert as their one choice.

I would it fully capable of protecting a system, especially with Safe Browsing, Anti-Keylogger, Risk Reduction systems, regular scans of HMP within it, and adding a lot more additional programs to the exploit mitigation.

I admit I always thought it looked pretty good. I may have imagined it, but I thought I read somewhere that, while it may be tougher than MBAE, it still has weaknesses.

 

[Burrito]

Fair enough. But as you pointed out, status quo is only temporary. And as I pointed out, people with AV and good browsing habits are getting infected. When Comcast's servers were presumably attacked in October of 2006, it was on the local news that 11 million computers were infected. I reimaged my machine three times (and never even had the chance to open a browser), before I realized it wasn't going to stop on its own.

Just because it's not happening to you personally doesn't mean a whole lot. There are over a billion computers on the Web today, and at least a third are believed to be infected right now (and that's not including Android phones or IoT devices). An identity is stolen every two seconds. Ask a professional security researcher if AV + safe browsing habits are enough. There are news blogs and more news blogs with a resounding NO.

I'm sorry if you believe I am mistaken because of your own personal experience. But with all the infections I deal with or read about not withstanding, you'll find it extremely difficult to convince me that my own personal experience never happened.

I agree.

A large part of the computing world gets it now -- the net is full of potential traps. Most employees now get training on basic web security and phishing for the operation of their employer's computers.

Although not statistically large, the world is full of infected people who possess basic internet literacy and have an active AV. Even VERY aware people here and at Wilders get whacked by malware periodically. Malwarebytes has a graphic of computers around the world being infected (in real-time) and what active AV the computer is running. There is some irony there as most of those AVs can detect much more than Malwarebytes..

For the purposes of this thread, I choose H_C.

The choice of H_C includes the new enhanced ML Windows Defender and all the benefits of ConfigureDefender (which is incorporated in H_C).

Or Norton Premium.

Some of the other potential choices may be too narrow in scope.

 

[ebocious]

I agree.

A large part of the computing world gets it now -- the net is full of potential traps. Most employees now get training on basic web security and phishing for the operation of their employer's computers.

Although not statistically large, the world is full of infected people who possess basic internet literacy and have an active AV. Even VERY aware people here and at Wilders get whacked by malware periodically. Malwarebytes has a graphic of computer around the world being infected and what active AV the computer is running. There is some irony there as most of those AVs can detect much more than Malwarebytes..

For the purposes of this thread, I choose H_C.

The choice of H_C includes the new enhanced ML Windows Defender and all the benefits of ConfigureDefender (which is incorporated in H_C).

Or Norton Premium.

Some of the other potential choices may be too narrow in scope.

I'm interested in giving H_C a try. When you enable/disable protection, do you have to reboot the system, or are changes effective immediately?

 

[roger_m]

Fair enough. But as you pointed out, status quo is only temporary. And as I pointed out, people with AV and good browsing habits are getting infected.

I honestly don't expect to be infected anytime soon. Of course I may be wrong, but based on past experience, I doubt it.

Just because it's not happening to you personally doesn't mean a whole lot.

I disagree. I am certainly not going to say that my experience applies to everyone. But I strongly believe that my experience of visiting, what is probably thousands of websites and never getting infected, is a good indication of how hard it is to get infected, just from browsing. While I've certainly never specifically tried to find unsafe sites, on the other hand I've never made any attempt to visit only trusted websites. Even if none of the well known websites I've visited, have been compromised at the time, you would think that there would be a good chance that I would gotten infected from some of the rather sketchy websites. But I haven't.

 

[ebocious]

I honestly don't expect to be infected anytime soon. Of course I may be wrong, but based on past experience, I doubt it.

I disagree. I am certainly not going to say that my experience applies to everyone. But I strongly believe that my experience of visiting, what is probably thousands of websites and never getting infected, is a good indication of how hard it is to get infected, just from browsing. While I've certainly never specifically tried to find unsafe sites, on the other hand I've never made any attempt to visit only trusted websites. Even if none of the well known websites I've visited, have been compromised at the time, you would think that there would be a good chance that I would gotten infected from some of the rather sketchy websites. But I haven't.

Like I said before, I'm happy for you. Since the topic of this thread is about picking a single program for protection, perhaps you'd care to share what AV you're using, or is it just WD? Of course, the OP did say he's interested in close to 100% effectiveness.

That said, I'm just office IT; I'm not a security researcher. If it's this important for you to set the record straight that AV is enough, I'm not the person for you to take it up with. There are bigger fish than me who say you're mistaken.

 

[Burrito]

I'm interested in giving H_C a try. When you enable/disable protection, do you have to reboot the system, or are changes effective immediately?

Caveat -- I just chose H_C for the purposes of this thread.

I prefer a different type of layered security... but not part of this thread discussion.

I run H_C on one computer that I don't use that often... but I like it a lot. And I like that Andy is here and can assist with it. And I'm pretty confident that the new ML WD with H_C is pretty solid.

While I'm no expert on H_C -- some changes seem to need a reboot, and others directly take effect.

 

[roger_m]

Like I said before, I'm happy for you. Since the topic of this thread is about picking a single program for protection, perhaps you'd care to share what AV you're using, or is it just WD? Of course, the OP did say he's interested in close to 100% effectiveness.

It's 360 Total Security Premium. I do know that there are much better alternatives. But it suits my needs well, as it is extremely light and actually prompts me before quarantining anything, so I have the option to whitelist it. It's not a good option if you're looking for 100% effectiveness, but for my own usage, that isn't much of an issue.

 

[oldschool]

I'm interested in giving H_C a try. When you enable/disable protection, do you have to reboot the system, or are changes effective immediately?

I’m not on my laptop, but I believe when you load a profile after initial install you may need a reboot or a log-off/on, I forget ATM. Some individual features take effect on the spot, after a splash notification There is also a SRP On/Off switch for easy SRP bypass. Very nice app!

Hard_Configurator - Windows Hardening Configurator

Post updated in July 2023. WARNING! The fake domain hard-configurator.com is currently (May 2023) used by some malicious actors. Please do not use it. Someone tries to fool people who want to get information about Hard_Configurator. Support for Windows 11 22H2 was added in the new version...

malwaretips.com

 

[ebocious]

I’m not on my laptop, but I believe when you load a profile after initial install you may need a reboot or a log-off/on, I forget ATM. Some individual features take effect on the spot, after a splash notification There is also a SRP On/Off switch for easy SRP bypass. Very nice app!

Hard_Configurator - Windows Hardening Configurator

Post updated in July 2023. WARNING! The fake domain hard-configurator.com is currently (May 2023) used by some malicious actors. Please do not use it. Someone tries to fool people who want to get information about Hard_Configurator. Support for Windows 11 22H2 was added in the new version...

malwaretips.com

Nice! I assume the easy SRP bypass works within the session?

 

[oldschool]

Nice! I assume the easy SRP bypass works within the session?

Yes.

 

[simmerskool]

Yep the Yandex browser has a lot of built in protection including Kaspersky which scans for anything downloaded from the web.

fwiw, I had looked at yandex a year or 2 ago, but let go of it, don't recall why, last night I tried to install yandex in SD shadow mode, and yandex would not install. install was very slow, finally got to 79% after long time and seemed frozen. so I rebooted. don't know if it was "bad connection" or if something was blocking it on my win7. I looked but could not find the source of blockage.
I'll vote for cruelcomodo &/or voodooshield
although lately experimenting more and more with virtual machines.

I am surprised nobody mentioned HitmanPro-Alert as their one choice.

HMP-A was always buggy for me, so I gave up, don't miss the "problems" it caused.
fwiw, my experience, last infection 2000 (I'm not IT pro & don't pretend to be)
I'm neutral re AppGuard. Ran v4.4.6. uninstalled 2017 (had used AG since 2011)

 

[Burrito]

HMP-A was always buggy for me, so I gave up, don't miss the "problems" it caused.
fwiw, my experience, last infection 2000 (I'm not IT pro & don't pretend to be)
I'm neutral re AppGuard. Ran v4.4.6. uninstalled 2017 (had used AG since 2011)

Yes, I gave up on HMP-A too for the same reasons. Back when I tried it -- it seemed like it was the greatest up-and-coming capability at the time. Once I got it, I lost interest in it pretty quickly.

I too used AppGuard -- but for not nearly as long as you. Why did you quit using it?

 

[Pkjfkknm]

Pick one program that you think provides the best protection if it was the only one you could use.

srp always most high security
microsoft prove it many times
kaspersky prove it many times
srp always best

 

[stefanos]

It's 360 Total Security Premium. I do know that there are much better alternatives. But it suits my needs well, as it is extremely light and actually prompts me before quarantining anything, so I have the option to whitelist it. It's not a good option if you're looking for 100% effectiveness, but for my own usage, that isn't much of an issue.

The cloud signatures of 360 TS believe me is in the top 5 everytime