While i'm certain that there's a large "Buy Our Products" flavored chunk of salt in this report, i'm willing to agree with McAfee's predictions that malware is only going to get worse, and with many of you being pressed into service as the family tech support weenie, it's starting to fall upon your shoulders to make sure that Aunt Edith's Venerable Win95 box isn't responsible for flooding the planet with ads for viagra.
The good news is that much of last year's list is still valid, but here's the current run down and associated notes:
1. Get them a firewall/router. Seriously, if you do nothing else, do this. Having a dedicated router sitting between them and the Interweb will save you from having to deal with a lot of predictive crap. Personally, i'd set up a 802.11g Linksys with WPA security, change the administrator password (after writing it on the bottom) of the unit with a sharpie and plastering it in place with tons of tape. You will not be able to predict what sort of crap they're going to toss onto their network, but you can give them something to keep the bad guys from getting in. (And seriously, you can pick one of these things up for $50.)
2. Avast Anti-Virus. Yep, still my favorite and still very free. Why? Well, a number of reasons. 1) It works. Haven't seen a virus yet on any computer i've installed this on. 2) Free means it NEVER goes out of date. Let me be clear about that. Sure McAfee and Norton are "better known", but the problem is that for your $60, you get a year's worth of protection. After that year, you get squat (or more importantly, squatted on). Since viruses are getting smarter and are being tested against main-stream anti-virus packages like (oh, say McAfee and Norton) you can rest assured that once your license dies, so does your computer.
That said, i'd really recommend getting a paid version of Avast for your personal computer. It's as effective as the free version, but with the added bonus that you're helping keep a very generous company in business.
3. Firefox 2.0. Install it if it's not already there. Turn on the anti-phishing and route their requests through Google. Yes, i know that this pretty much hands their information to an Advertising Company, but with new phishing sites popping up all the time and your relative not being the sharpest spoon in the drawer when it comes to these things, it's better than nothing.
4. The SysInternals tools:
Specifically:
Process Explorer (to show you ALL the processes that are running)
Autorun( to find and potentially disable any "unusual" startup programs)
Rootkit Revealer to see if they bought a Sony disk recently.
You'll note that i don't include ZoneAlarm in this run up. There's a good reason. ZoneAlarm was my firewall of choice for a long time, except lately they've become too paranoid. It pops up alerts constantly, calls legitimate programs threats and otherwise confuses things. For me, it's annoying. Installing this on my in-laws box would mean they'd constantly be on the phone back to me. Therefore, it loses.
For now, either run the XP SP2 firewall (if available) or trust in the above Linksys Router to block things. Tell Uncle Bob that it's "the doorman to the Internet".
A few other pointers to remember:
1. Burn these to CD Yeah a USB drive would be easier to haul around and can hold more, but that assumes Aunt Tillie's got a USB capable machine.
2. Bring a system disk Call ahead and find out what OS they're running. Root through your archives to find a copy of it and toss that CD in the repair case. Chances are EXTREMELY good that your techno-n00b relatives either won't have a disk or it will be "helpfully" bundled on some unreachable auto-recover disk (i'm looking at you Sony!) Not really that useful if you need to install or repair some system level app.
3. Do a test install of IE7 i've got a 50% success rate on IE7. If they haven't already gotten the update, install it and watch to see what breaks. The older the computer the higher the chance that this will happen. On my in-laws, IE7 took out their dial-up. On one of my brother's computers IE7 took out an important app he uses. Both have been blocked from upgrading and have had FireFox installed. This doesn't mean that Microsoft won't "helpfully" shove IE7 down their throats eventually, but it gives me and the relatives time to find work-arounds.
Try to have fun this holiday season even if it means occasionally getting off the computer and dealing with the folks you traveled all that way to see.
