Not sure if this has been asked / answered before, as I can’t find anyhting in Search.
I’ve recently uninstalled CFP3 (and also WinXP SP3) as there seemed to be some minor issues regarding printing through my TCP port. My question is this. I’m now using KAV7, BOClean 4.26 and the Windows Firewall with a Draytek Vigor 2900VG router. My laptop is not particularly powerful by latest standards, so I’ve decided not to re-install CFP3 for now.
Is this setup OK? I’m not paranoid about security, but equally, I don’t want to expose my PC to threats unnecessarily. Do you think I really need (or should!) re-install CFP3, or is my current setup a good balance between reasonable protection and none at all?
Windows firewall does nothing for protection. Your better off dumping BOClean since you have KAV and reinstalling Comodo Firewall. BOClean uses more memory then Comodo firewall. The HIPS in Comodo firewall is better protection then BOClean.
OK, thanks, I’ll do that. But I thought one of the key benefits of BOClean was that it has a really small memory requirement? Which is one of the reasons I decided to dump CFP3>
When I reinstall CFP3, would it be a good idea to run it in Training mode for a few days?
Every setup is okay, at least before you get infected, and you could get infected if you tried hard enough even with CFP3; you decide where to stop. If your concern is inbound protection and stealthing, even the Windows firewall will do the job as well as CFP (unless you’re concerned that it’s more likely that someone should find an unpatched vulnerability in WF than in CFP). And if you have a firewall in your router I guess that’s not your concern for your choice of personal software firewall. The point in CFP3 is the HIPS and outbound control, so use CFP if you want those and don’t if you don’t.
In my understanding that would pretty much beat the whole purpose of installing it in the first place. ??? It would be theoretically okay provided two propositions hold true: that your system was perfectly clean before the installation, and that nothing bad was let in while CFP was in training mode and so doing nothing but memorizing rules.
BOC isn’t too economic about memory (18 megs), but nothing modern systems can’t handle aplenty. It’s your option, but I think BOC is never a trivial addition to whatever setup. I don’t know if KAV scans the memory like BOC or only files, if it does that might weight against keeping BOC, but an additional pair of eyes can save the day, especially able ones like BOC’s. And unlike CFP (which on the other hand does use less memory), BOC needs zero user attention.
(safe mode or paranoid mode)