From The Naked PC issue #5.02...

Security for You, and Me

by Al Gordon
January 17, 2002

In addition to the anti-virus solutions my colleague Lee Hudspeth has been outlining, safe computing these days also requires the addition of two other measures: personal firewalls and privacy shields.

My recommendation for the former is Zone Labs' Zone Alarm Pro ($39.95):
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/502/tr.cgi?al1

My recommendation for the latter is interMute's AdSubtract Pro ($29.95):
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/502/tr.cgi?al2

The best deal is to buy the two as a bundle from AdSubtract at $39.95. Zone Labs charges 10 bucks more for the bundle; go figure. Alternatively, if you are using Symantec's Norton product lineup, you can go with Norton Internet Security 2002, also $39.95 after rebates:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/502/tr.cgi?al3

Norton Internet Security is not quite as easy to configure or as effective as the other two products. But it's close and it offers the advantage of integration with other Norton products.

The Naked PC previously has recommended the freeware version of Zone Alarm. So why pay for the "Pro" version? To protect ME, that's why.

Pro has beefed up email security capabilities to nail those macro viruses, worms and Trojans that have been plaguing the Web. Among other things, Zone Alarm Pro will look for more than three dozen types of suspect file attachments and rename them so that virus- like activities can't be auto-launched. This also keeps a user from inadvertently launching them himself. Zone Labs recommends against running its "MailSafe" scanning along with anti-virus email scans. However, I have had good results running both Zone Alarm Pro and Norton Antivirus 2002--Zone Alarm renames the extensions and NAV still cleans the virus.

Even better, Zone Alarm Pro will monitor your OUTBOUND email traffic to see if some automatic process is about to send out a flood of emails, typical worm techniques as witness the recent "goner" attack. One of my associates avoided launching several hundred goner emails only by virtue of noticing the large number of messages in her outbox seconds before she was about to make a dialup connection. With always-on broadband, that safety margin wouldn't be there. Not only do you need firewall protection for yourself with broadband, other users need protection from you.

AdSubtract would be valuable simply if it only stopped those #$@%^! pop-up; pop-under; pop-sideways ads that have made Web surfing really, REALLY annoying. AdSubtract blocks almost all of this activity. I say "almost" because the jerks at X10.com (a/k/a "spycams R us"), having given up on their pop-unders, seem to have found a way to put up jiggling banner ads that the blocking software hasn't caught up to yet. In addition to the ad filter, AdSubtract has a very good cookie monitoring capability, and can block Java scripts, background music, redirects, and pretty much every other annoying thing that Web pages are capable of doing.

Although produced by different companies, AdSubtract Pro and Zone Alarm Pro have been designed to complement each other. They would be even better if the two companies developed a common interface. However, the methodology of the two is similar enough for users to avoid confusion. Both are fully customizable, with numerous options to tailor security to your needs. You can set them up on the basis of being permissive--most activities are permitted unless you specifically block them--or you can be like me and take the paranoid approach--everything is blocked unless you allow it.

Be advised: with the protection installed, you will find that things will have stopped working on Web pages you visit. You will click a link, say, and nothing will happen. You will have to make a corrective setting in the software to re-enable the feature. It is a little annoying perhaps, but a heck of a lot less annoying than having your PC hacked and your privacy compromised.

You can reach Al Gordon at:
mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com

Return to Top

TNPC Hot Tips:

• Email out of control? Spam filling your inbox? People trying to steal your identity? Same here - until I applied these tips. You can too in a new multimedia e-book. Tame Your Email.

• DO YOU MAKE THESE MONEY MISTAKES? Do you know that trying to pay off your high interest rate debts first and/or paying extra on more than one debt is the SLOWEST way to get out of debt? Don't make these same mistakes. Learn more at by clicking here...