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Yea Thanks Microsoft



 
 
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  #21  
Old July 3rd 07, 09:39 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsme.setup
Mike M
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 2,047
Default Yea Thanks Microsoft

With a DG834GT and WPA-PSK you are reasonably ready to go. I was using an
DG834G until a year or so ago when I moved to ADSL2+ (the Netgear range
aren't particularly compatible with my ISP's ADSL2+ line cards) The router
password shouldn't be that important as it should only be usable from LAN
side (that is not from the internet) although if you had no wireless
security then LAN side would be as open as WAN side )that is the internet
side).

Incidentally I found that for some unknown reason by default my DG834G had
four open ports, found using a scanner, but this was easily remedied by
adding a rule to block those ports.
--
Mike Maltby



Tony1966 wrote:

Thanks for the comments and feedback on set up - I used Kerio in the
dim and distant past as well as a few free virus + ad/spyware apps so
I guess I have a busy day tomorrow

I've a Netgear DG834GT Router - with desktop ME via Ethernet and new
wireless Vista laptop. I've already changed router password and
WPA-PSK network code - anyone could've guessed the original. The
router has a built in firewall configured to factory settings so
that's another thing for me to read re optimal configuration but
there's another forum I'm part of that will sort out that and the NAT
question.


  #22  
Old July 4th 07, 12:10 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsme.setup
Tony1966
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 13
Default Yea Thanks Microsoft

Don't worry about teaching me how to suck eggs - I need all the help and
advice I can get (clearly !!!) :-) - if there's anything I already know I
wouldn't care about reading it twice.

By your latest responses you've already raised two questions.

1) Text view for emails - I pick all my emails up through POP/SMTP
configured either on Outlook 2000 (ME) or Windows Live Mail Beta (Vista) -
aren't these text mails or have I completely misunderstood the point

2) Can I ask how you detect and close open ports on the router please


I've had a look around at firewalls and I've got Kerio 2.1.5 on standby -
looks like a later release of the one I had on my system before and I
remember it was pretty easy to configure and train. I'm going to try Jetico
Personal Firewall first, just to be different

"Mike M" wrote:

PS I've just realised I omitted the main tool in one's armoury in
protecting a PC from unwanted intrusion, malware, trojans, worms, adware
and the like and that is to practice "Safe Hex" at all times. Be aware
(which you are by asking your question). Keep your system as up to date
as far as is possible with a legacy system such as Win Me. Use text view
when viewing e-mails only switching to html/web view where you trust the
sender. Only open attachments if you know the sender and were expecting
the document. Don't visit strange web pages or follow hidden links. Be
wary of URLs that rather than containing a friendly alias and domain are
just an IP address, for example www.microsoft.com OK, whereas
http:\10.10.10.10\spoof_your_bank be VERY VERY wary.

Remember there are few genuine free lunches. If an offer seems too good
to be true then in all likelihood it isn't genuine.

My apologies if you feel I'm trying to teach you to suck eggs. That was
never my intention.
--
Mike Maltby



Mike M wrote:

I didn't make myself clear enough - sorry.


You did. However you seem to have missed the gist of my post where I
was trying to say that living in the UK isn't an excuse for users
having an unwanted AV solution imposed on them when they purchase a
new PC. This is standard practice world-wide. As for
Norton/Symantec their appalling track record over the last decade is
also pretty well documented in both newsgroups and web forums.

I've had advice from oops on suggested firewall/virus/spyware etc
protection but I'd really be interested in your own thoughts and
recommendations into protecting my ME environment.


I have no knowledge of how you connect to the internet but if using
ADSL or cable the very first thing I would do would be to use a
router even if only using a single PC. Enable NAT (Network Address
Translation) on the router and this will provide a very effective
firewall, so good in fact that this no longer becomes a major issue
with the OS however if you want both belt and braces suitable
firewalls commonly used that work reasonably well with Win Me are
early versions of Kerio, formerly Tiny, (v2.1.5 works well with Win
Me) and Zone Alarm (versions up to and including 6.1.744.001).

AV - AVG (from Grisoft), Panda, Trend, Computer Associates, NOD32 and
Kaspersky and Computer Associates AV (stick with just the AV
component of their internet suite). I wouldn't recommend McAfee
although this has improved and strongly recommend that you avoid any
product with the Symantec of Norton label as most cause major
problems with Win Me. Personally I'm currently using Atwill's Avast!
on Vista, XP64 and XP x86 systems, NOD32 on XP, CA on XP and Win Me
and have an old Win Me that uses AVG although have to admit I rarely
use that box nowadays. Note I multi-boot and have numerous operating
systems installed on the same PC, likewise I use Virtual Machines
(where an operating system such as Win Me can run in a window on say
XP) which is why I have so many systems
AntiSpyware - Lots of possibilities here but here again personally I
tend not to have anything actually running but do use AdAware SE and
Spybot Search & Destroy with Win Me.

Mike,

I didn't make myself clear enough - sorry.

It is when you go to the well know national PC/electrical stores that
you don't see, or get offered a wide range of firewall/virus options
presumably because there is some sort of incentive offered between
the companies to promote their software. Similarly switching ISPs, as
I have recently done tends to come with "free" 12 month subscription
to one of the big two. It's the typical marketing economy to the
illiterate PC majority. In the same way the best burgers are anything
but McDonalds but you rarely see those either advertised or promoted
by other means. Fortunately my lack of expertise in PCs is made up
for by my expertise in food

I know enough to know that when I have problems there are great
places to come on the web to get answers to problems and
recommendations as to future use.

Ad-Aware SE is only an educated guess when I was trying to work back
step by step to what I had done I came across a number of articles on
the web about people that appear to have had similar problems to me,
though there appears to be no CONSENSUS on whether this is a true
confirmed fault or just wild suspicions like mine.

This differs significantly from Norton where I've always been well
aware of how it slows down your computer and I'm now only too aware
of other issues it can cause.

I've had advice from oops on suggested firewall/virus/spyware etc
protection but I'd really be interested in your own thoughts and
recommendations into protecting my ME environment. I'm already pretty
tight on the Internet Options I permit through IE. but again your
insight would be appreciated



  #23  
Old July 4th 07, 01:05 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsme.setup
Mike M
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 2,047
Default Yea Thanks Microsoft

Tony1966 wrote:

Don't worry about teaching me how to suck eggs - I need all the help
and advice I can get (clearly !!!) :-) - if there's anything I
already know I wouldn't care about reading it twice.

By your latest responses you've already raised two questions.

1) Text view for emails - I pick all my emails up through POP/SMTP
configured either on Outlook 2000 (ME) or Windows Live Mail Beta
(Vista) - aren't these text mails or have I completely misunderstood
the point


No. You can either view as plain text or html. The problem with html is
that it can autorun unwanted content and also link to external sites. I
don't have a Vista box to hand (I hate the OS and only have it installed
on my laptop which a friend is using at the moment). I think that
Outlook offers the choice of viewing in any of plain text, rtf or html
however I'm not an Outlook user. Ah, checking on O2003 which I do have
installed but not use, I can see the option to send in plain, rtf or html
but cannot find where to choose how to view incoming mail unlike Outlook
Express where the option is found at Tools | Options | Read.

2) Can I ask how you detect and close open ports on the router please


You can detecting open ports using a scanner such as that from Audit My Pc
(http://www.auditmypc.com/security-scan.asp). It can take quite a time to
check all 65 thousand odd as that scanner tests 2,500 at a time.

To close any incoming ports which you find are open and not explicitly
opened by yourself create a rule on the Netgear that closes the port. I'm
sorry but not having a Netgear router to hand at the moment I cannot
remember the commands to do this when logged on via the web interface but
I think you will find it quite intuitive. I think the left hand column
has an option that mentions creating rules, select, then new, give the
rule a name, select the port(s), UDP and/or TCP and then that they should
be closed. Save and then on the same or perhaps a different menu enable
the rule and whether to log or not.

I've had a look around at firewalls and I've got Kerio 2.1.5 on
standby - looks like a later release of the one I had on my system
before and I remember it was pretty easy to configure and train. I'm
going to try Jetico Personal Firewall first, just to be different.

--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows




  #24  
Old July 4th 07, 09:12 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsme.setup
Tony1966
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 13
Default Yea Thanks Microsoft

Excellent, thanks yet again Mike.

I too found nowhere within Outlook to set incoming mail to text. I have a
sneaking suspicion that it either defaults to text or warns you about
potentially unsafe html incoming mails. Either way my outlook is set up with
a preview pane and messages are not read and processed until I click them -
unlike outlook default which is to process them just by having the mail
highlighted. Anything dodgy which has bypassed existing spam/junk rules gets
deleted. I'll have a look on help/outlook forums to confim anyway.

On the router your advice is noted. I've got the scanner run on the desktop
at the moment and I can confirm precise router tweaking operation on an
independant (sub) forum relating to the ISP once complete.

Tony

"Mike M" wrote:

Tony1966 wrote:

Don't worry about teaching me how to suck eggs - I need all the help
and advice I can get (clearly !!!) :-) - if there's anything I
already know I wouldn't care about reading it twice.

By your latest responses you've already raised two questions.

1) Text view for emails - I pick all my emails up through POP/SMTP
configured either on Outlook 2000 (ME) or Windows Live Mail Beta
(Vista) - aren't these text mails or have I completely misunderstood
the point


No. You can either view as plain text or html. The problem with html is
that it can autorun unwanted content and also link to external sites. I
don't have a Vista box to hand (I hate the OS and only have it installed
on my laptop which a friend is using at the moment). I think that
Outlook offers the choice of viewing in any of plain text, rtf or html
however I'm not an Outlook user. Ah, checking on O2003 which I do have
installed but not use, I can see the option to send in plain, rtf or html
but cannot find where to choose how to view incoming mail unlike Outlook
Express where the option is found at Tools | Options | Read.

2) Can I ask how you detect and close open ports on the router please


You can detecting open ports using a scanner such as that from Audit My Pc
(http://www.auditmypc.com/security-scan.asp). It can take quite a time to
check all 65 thousand odd as that scanner tests 2,500 at a time.

To close any incoming ports which you find are open and not explicitly
opened by yourself create a rule on the Netgear that closes the port. I'm
sorry but not having a Netgear router to hand at the moment I cannot
remember the commands to do this when logged on via the web interface but
I think you will find it quite intuitive. I think the left hand column
has an option that mentions creating rules, select, then new, give the
rule a name, select the port(s), UDP and/or TCP and then that they should
be closed. Save and then on the same or perhaps a different menu enable
the rule and whether to log or not.

I've had a look around at firewalls and I've got Kerio 2.1.5 on
standby - looks like a later release of the one I had on my system
before and I remember it was pretty easy to configure and train. I'm
going to try Jetico Personal Firewall first, just to be different.

--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows





  #25  
Old July 4th 07, 11:42 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsme.setup
Mike M
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 2,047
Default Yea Thanks Microsoft

Tony,

That all sounds good. Note, as I am sure you already appreciate, you only
need to scan from one of your machines since what is being tested is the
router rather than the machine being used.

BTW, although I don't know which ISP you are using, I wouldn't expect them
to require you to have any open ports on your router other than those you
have intentionally opened yourself. For example I have four ports opened,
21 which is used to access my FTP server and three others with randomly
assigned numbers used to access specific programs I have installed on my
system one of which is the BT application Azureus. These ports are open
and each directed to a specific machine on my LAN. All others are closed
and only opened in response to requests made my system. Normally you need
to have no ports open unless you are running servers such as FTP (21),
SMTP Mail (25) and web (http 80 and maybe https 443). Likewise you would
need to open a port, for example 3389 if you wished to use Remote Desktop
from another location to access your Vista machine.
--
Mike Maltby



Tony1966 wrote:

Excellent, thanks yet again Mike.

I too found nowhere within Outlook to set incoming mail to text. I
have a sneaking suspicion that it either defaults to text or warns
you about potentially unsafe html incoming mails. Either way my
outlook is set up with a preview pane and messages are not read and
processed until I click them - unlike outlook default which is to
process them just by having the mail highlighted. Anything dodgy
which has bypassed existing spam/junk rules gets deleted. I'll have
a look on help/outlook forums to confim anyway.

On the router your advice is noted. I've got the scanner run on the
desktop at the moment and I can confirm precise router tweaking
operation on an independant (sub) forum relating to the ISP once
complete.


 




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