Be Excellent To Each Other

Righty ho good folks, I hope you are well?

I have MSE installed on my PC, and was under the impression that this utilised MS Firewall, and that use of a third party firewall might screw things up. Previously, I haven't used MS FW as I don't like the lack of interaction/configurability.
Every week or so MSE runs a quickscan and finds nothing. Occasionally if I feel like listening to my PC do tornado impressions, I run a full scan. Everytime I do, it finds something, the histroy currently shows nothing but "Java/exploit", "Java/Trojan" or other Java stuff. Why is it I keep getting these Java things, is this just the terminology of virii these days? Or are these a specific sort? Why doesn't the quickscan find them? Why doesn't the firewall find them when they attempt to access the network?

Furthermore, I recently installed a program called Rapport. This is a program which runs alongside things and monitors password usage, it was recommended by my bank. Anyway, recently it flashed up on the screen, "Malicious software has been found on this PC, do not type any passwords until running a virus scan." Or words to that effect. Well, I ran a full virus scan and lo and behold, there was four java things going down. How on Earth did Rapport find these without performing a scan, when my virus checker required a 45 minute scan to find them?

Finally, does anyone know a decent firewall which can run alongside MSE?

My bank was hassling me to install Rapport, on my Mac. GTFF! I don't want that shit slowing down my computer.

The security industry is a multi million dollar one. Unless you are visiting "bad" sites or using pirated software, you shouldn't have much to worry about. But their software has every interest in trying to scare the shit out of you.

Also running AV software is no guarantee you won't get infected. Sure it might tell you that you have a virus, but if it prevents it actually occurring or not is an entirely different matter.

The only reason I ever used a firewall on a Windows PC was to stop certain software from phoning home. In most circumstances a good NAT router is enough.

Don't bother with a PC firewall.

Do you have MSE set up to do on-access scans? All the java type malware are coming in via your browser, and MSE should really pick them up immediately.

I have MSE as default, as far asI can tell I have everything ticked, ut there isn't an explicit "on-access" option (that I can find) real time protection is ticked though.

The way I have my systems configured is thusly-

A virtualbox with a ubuntu install which handles all bar a very few sites, which I'm fairly sure aren't dangerous. This has a rather aggressive firewall on it, including no communication to the local network.
A second VM with a virus checker on it, no network access aside from the virus lists and access to the local drives. This is run occasionally for peace of mind.
Windows firewall.

All behind a commercial grade hardware firewall.

Every virus checkers I've seen has been, sadly, not all that good at stopping viruses, and poor for performance.
By shipping off anything at all dangerous to a VM I don't need one and keep good performance. No virus has managed to get round it since I've been using it. And it's free.

The only reason I bother with the windows firewall is I don't completely trust the other computer on the local net.

I just have a Mac.

I could have got a mac, but it would both have cost more, and not done what I wanted in the first place.

I worked out the other day that if I looked at 2 years of ownership of my tower, and compared it to 2 years of ownership of the previous editing box, the lack of downtime and other problems more than made up for the Apple Tax.

Of course the laptop fried its motherboard so the point is kind of moot. But in terms of OS, the Mac has a clear advantage. Neither have had any gremlins to speak of.

What was your previous box, Chinnychinchin?