Not sure about Spybot, but SpywareBlaster doesn’t integrate with Opera anyway, afaik. The problem, from a paranoia standpoint is that you never know for sure what the bad guys are up to; what knew ways they’re working on to get computers infected. Not yours specifically (they don’t know and don’t care about the individual), but just in general; if you get caught in the web, so be it. SpywareBlaster does load a blacklist of known bad sites into the browser (IE or FF) and will keep you from accessing those sites, where “drive-by” infections are possible (no interaction from the user required). And yes, in general (if not specifically) blocking scripts from running is a very good defense.
I agree with you, LA; I think infections are largely due to user habits (and possibly, ignorance - or just plain stupidity). People still open email attachments from people they don’t know. They actually open email from unknown sources (where header-embedded viral payloads can be released on an unpatched system with out-of-date antivirus (which research shows the majority of home and possibly small business users are all out of date…). I know in my current and last job, they would be if it weren’t for me and my moderate-level paranoia. In fact, the computer I inherited at my last job was infected with tons of backdoors when I got it. Why? Instant Messenging by the previous user, no antivirus, a backlog of uninstalled Windows updates/patches, and a hardware firewall that wasn’t even turned on (on a static external IP address)!!!
Then folks surf porn sites, click any links in email or on the web, download this that or the other screensaver, cool pictures, and whatnot. Again, no AV (or out of date), no system updates, no security in general.
Then you’ve got the wannabees that do all these things (and possibly p2p downloads as well) and think they’re invulnerable because they are up to date, they’ve turned off some Windows services, use an alternative browser that gives scripting control, and so on. But if you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned…
I’ve only been infected by a virus once on a computer completely controlled by me (in 2000 or 2002, I can’t remember). Not saying I’m some sort of security genius (I’m not!), but I do tend to be careful. That one time was an email virus from someone I knew, and looked innocent enough. That was my introduction into Windows vulnerabilities, and how header-embedded viruses can launch without the user opening the attachment. Ah, the sweet pain of a reformat…
As for CFP 3, so far I’m impressed with its footprint. It’s an Alpha, and unstable; one time it froze up on me, and I think that’s when it hit the Peak usage, of 17MB; other than that it’s been right about 8MB, between both running processes. And that’s not even with the final safelist, apparently. Looks promising…
LM