Posted on 07/02/2005 11:27:16 AM PDT by BJungNan
Better yet - reimage.
Why is re-imaging better?
And won't this whole deal work only with dynamic IP assignment? (Sorry if dumb questions...not a computer professional here...)
interesting...
my computer is online all the time, yet I don't have these problems......
then again, I try to hack at the pop ups and attempt to block them or change their IP addresses too :)
reimaging allows you to not lose your information (documents, things you want to save, etc.), whereas reformating wipes EVERYTHING off of the hard drive and start with a clean slate...
Not a good idea. If you run naked you will soon be swamped with pop ups and data miners and trojans whether you have anyhting of value or not. All that crap is enough to slow you to a crawl. Besides, I enjoy cleaning house and shoveling all the crap out periodically.
An interesting idea.
You don't have to re-format/re-install anything. The image contains a copy of software/your preferred settings, etc. IOW - a computer setup just the way you want it - instead of going thru all the trouble of reformatting/reinstalling.
Of course - you'll have to reformat/install/setup the machine initially to create the image. But after that, it only takes 15-30 minutes to reimage and bang - it's setup just the way you like it. As far as my personal documents, etc - those reside on my server, which I back up to DVD once a week...
But that's the point, isn't it? If you just re-image, you're not cleaning up all the tracks created while running naked, and directory structures, file locations and CLSIDs and all will not be changed, perhaps?
I am not a big fan of more legislation to cure whatever ails our society, but I would favor the death penalty for pop-up ad makers and spyware purveyors, and I would hold ISP's financially liable after the first report of a spammer on its system.
I suppose I am naive about all this, and that the out of the country spammers could never be held accountable.
I have two computers, one for the 'net and the other for my development and other stuff. They are NOT networked, but they each have a ZIP disk drive, so if I download something I want to keep, I transfer it that way, or by burning a CD if it's really big file.
But the truth is, I haven't had any problem with spyware whatsoever since I installed Mozilla Firefox. Even so, I still use ZoneAlarm, Symantec Systemworks, and Ad-Aware.
no necessarily, but it does remove any installed programs, i.e. spyware and all of that stuff....
if your virus definitions and security software is better than it was, it stands a better chance of blocking such intrusions...
but I wouldnt run around "naked" on the internet. That is what the hackers are waiting for....
I guess no one has heard of MSNTV2. It's a very simple, user friendly, internet reciever similar to webtv. I'm using it to post this message. www.msntv2.com
Re-imaging in this case means restarting from square one. You do a clean install, put on all the programs that you want, and (before ever connecting to the internet) saving an image.
Then you browse around for a while, attracting all sort of bugs and such. But every so often you copy your previously-saved image of your clean start back onto your machine, in effect wiping everything that's been done since.
That being said, I have free anti-virus, free anti-spyware, and free anti-popup installed. They're all set to update and scan automatically. I almost never see a popup (about 1 or 2 month gets through--really), haven't had a virus for over a year (and the one that I had a year ago was caught and cleared automatically--caused no damage) and spyware is cleared daily if it gets through.
I have DSL and my computer is connected 24/7/365 and has been online for close to three years straight. $0.00 down, $0.00 per month.
Or, just get a Macintosh and use OS X with Firefox.
Problem solved.
In theory a good idea. In practice, totally unworkable. What about downloading, online gaming, e-mail, etc. and trying to maintain preferences, cookies, etc. Who except a masochist would want to perpetually be in a state of reformatting, restoring, reinstalling, reconfiguring, reupdating, etc.? Unless this guy browes in a completely generic, image-free, courier text-based, non-interactive, vanilla environment, I don't see how this could work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.