Hi Lusher,
You can never be too paranoid.
Wrong. You *CAN* be too paranoid. The fact that you say you can't, tells me you don't know what paranoid means.
Please join me at places like Wilders Security forum before you say things like that.
You can see people running all manner of security programs, freaking out over every "test" that their setup fails, seeing "ghosts" (easy to do when they are running several kernel level security software that conflict with each other on some level) that (to them)indicates super stealthy rootkits on their system , who worry about totally theortical threats that no one has even thought is possible...
On the Internet the best attitude is to never trust anyone.
That's not being paranoid, that's just common sense. You really don't know what paranonia means.
Do not trust your links to take you to a malware free site. There is always danger looming round an unexpected corner, the only thing you can do is minimizie the risk you run. That means take a couple of steps that really help. A. Always have the latest version of software on your box, always have the latest version of Java (check this). B. Try to minimize running script, I for instance would not touch a browser without the NoScript extension where I can deny script running in the browser, deny browser hijacks, redirects etc., that is why I use FF or Flock or Torpark. C. Do your surfing, mailing or other net services on an account without full admin rights, but with normal user rights (I use admin rights only for updating Microsoft and installing or deleting software). I have two accounts on my XP: one with full admin rights and SafeXP installed, the other with normal user rights and SafeXP installed.
*Yawn*, you know what? All this is nothing compared to what real paranoids do. Here's a light weight version.
First they do system hardening... turn off everything unnecessary (not just browsers but other unnecessary system services). Then they run with reduced rights their browsers, and then also *Sandbox* the browser (which goes beyond non-admin) for good measure. If by some miracle anything
gets past that, they still need to get past the virus/antispyware/trojan scanners, as well as the behavior blockers (smart and dumb). And on top of that all this is running in VM , or is in on the real machine but in "virtualized/shadow" mode using something like returnil or FDISR
And I'm still leaving out all the other minor stuff they do with blacklists, minor tweaks to confound expectation etc..
And i believe a setup like this scored only 7/10
But then again despite you are paranoid, are attentive, you can fall victim to some zero day malware, but I have stayed free of malware since the day I started to become a malware fighter for avast.
Since the day you started? Does that imply you were infected before that?
Let me guess you are one of those who got infected one day, got mad (and scared) and vowed "Never again...." and started on this quest of yours to destroy all malware? Funny how many of the most "paranoid" people start that way.
Too bad, I never ever got infected since starting with computers in 75... Not that I was smarter or more skilled than anyone, just luckier maybe. But perhaps the fact that i have never being infected (not on purpose anyway) , makes me less likely to say things like "you can never be too paranoid.."
You CAN be too paranoid. Just ask the guys whose computers are groaning under the weight of several different top class security software (none of them are duplications per se ie not 2 antivirus kind of setuops) and who jump at shadows...
