PC Spec for broadband & anti virus

Redlancer

I am a fairly old pc user and to be honest do struggle with my pc from time to time.I do know my present pc is well out of date.I am starting to work from home and want to get broadband installed but what spec of pc would I need for it to work well.What security features do I need, I was told this is very important if using the pc for business

irlrobins

A lot of broadband providers will state min reqs. Usually a PC running Windows 98, 64Mb of RAM, USB or network card, etc.

In practice, you'll find that to get the most out of it you'd want a much faster PC than the min specs that runs XP.

As for security software, antivirus, anti spyware and firewall are a must. All of these are available as commerical or free packages.

Adaware, Spybot, AVG, Sygate are some of the more popular freeware versions.

If you're starting to work from home then do yourself a favour and get a new PC. It will save you lots of heartache!

Dell will have something to suit your needs and budget. They are good machines and their support is very good and easily accessible.

Gurgle

Redlancer wrote:

I am starting to work from home and want to get broadband installed but what spec of pc would I need for it to work well.What security features do I need, I was told this is very important if using the pc for business

A bargain basement Dell should do you nicely.
Get Win XP Pro and take their 3 years collect + return warranty. I'd never recommend the warranty to anyone who wasn't planning to run a business off the PC.

Keep all your business related files in the same folder and back up to CD/DVD at least once a week. If your PC develops a problem, the first thing Dell will do is wipe your hard drive.

For security AVG anti-virus is excellent along with XP's built in firewall running and keep up with the windows updates you should be fine. Don't surf dodgy sites and you shouldn't have a problem with viruses and spyware.

zilog_jones

irlrobins wrote:

A lot of broadband providers will state min reqs. Usually a PC running Windows 98, 64Mb of RAM, USB or network card, etc.

In practice, you'll find that to get the most out of it you'd want a much faster PC than the min specs that runs XP.

XP? Screw that, Windows 2000 will be fine for most of your needs, especially if it's just for business work. A Pentium II around 400MHz with 128MB RAM (preferably 256 or more) will be my "borderline usable" spec - A Pentium III will be a good deal better. Anything before Windows 2000 will be a pain in the arse for setting up networking or trying to get to work with any USB device.

For broadband you'd want to check you have a network card too - broadband over USB is also like said pain-in-arse.

I'd recommend AVG Free for anti-virus too, and for security/anti-spyware all you really need to do is use anything that's NOT Internet Explorer.

SouperComputer

XP Pro could be a waste of money for you unless you are joining a domain.

For what you want to do, a machine cicra 700Mhz+ will be fine. Ideally with 512Mb of RAM, but 256 should suffice. 400Mhz would be okay, but a little on the overly sluggish side IMO, espcially with a Hard drive from that eire.

AVG free is fine for what it is, free antivirus, but it is far from the best and is also not licensed for use by businesses.

Best AV is NOD32 from eset, it also uses very little resources which is an added bonus if using an older machine. On the spyware side of things, no single one program that is good enough by itself. For a business or other critical workstation I would recommend Ewido (commercial software) in conjunction with MS Antispyware (Free, dont bother with defender), Spyware blaster and Spybot S&D.

These are allowed for use by businesses, although donations are always welcome. The free version of AdAware is not licenced for use by businesses.

Lastly, I wouldnt bother with the extra warranty if going for a Dell or another brand. If you are a business or working from home it is a much better plan to seek local support from a company/professional who knows how you work and cares about your data.

Another cost to consider is Office software, this can often cost more than the computer itself. Of course OpenOffice is a free alternative that business users can use, but it doesnt cut the mustard for everyone.


Windows 2000 would be sufficent, but mainstram support ended last year. From that perspective, I would reccomend windows XP. Also SP2 for XP has much improved secuity for the less tech-savvy user than 2k.

Another step you could take is downgrade your account to a standard user and only use the administrator's account when needed.

I'd recommend AVG Free for anti-virus too, and for security/anti-spyware all you really need to do is use anything that's NOT Internet Explorer.

That's terribly dangerous advice. Many expolits and general nasties affect the OS directly. Firefox of course does help a little. But to suggest that to prevent issues, all a business user has to do it change browser is suicide! This approach may well work for you as you know what sites may be "dodgy", but to give this advice to someone who is potentially running a business from a computer to me a strange.

zilog_jones

Sorry, I didn't word that very well - I'm by no means saying you wouldn't need a firewall! But I've been using Opera for years *never* get any spyware/malware from websites when using it, no matter how dodgy.

Didn't think about the business licencing, and I've heard a lot of good stuff about NOD32 - just never tried it myself.

Gurgle

SouperComputer wrote:

AVG free is fine for what it is, free antivirus, but it is far from the best and is also not licensed for use by businesses.

Theres a professional version too.
Don't know what the difference is tbh.

SouperComputer wrote:

Lastly, I wouldnt bother with the extra warranty if going for a Dell or another brand. If you are a business or working from home it is a much better plan to seek local support from a company/professional who knows how you work and cares about your data.

Theres a certain amount of muppetry with 'local support' though. Fine if you know somebody who knows their **** but otherwise:eek:

SouperComputer wrote:

Windows 2000 would be sufficent, but mainstram support ended last year. From that perspective, I would reccomend windows XP. Also SP2 for XP has much improved secuity for the less tech-savvy user than 2k.

I'd recommend XP just for the firewall.
Otherwise Win 2k is far superior.

SouperComputer

Theres a professional version too.
Don't know what the difference is tbh.

Thats why I said distinctly said AVG Free. Professional is better, but I still choose NOD32 over it, hence why I didnt mention it.

Theres a certain amount of muppetry with 'local support' though. Fine if you know somebody who knows their **** but otherwise

At least you can attempt to vet the people you are working at. But this is true of any business.

I'd recommend XP just for the firewall.
Otherwise Win 2k is far superior.

Im an avid, hardcore, 2k user myself, and up since it was effectivly dropped last year by M$, I would be wary to reccomend it to an end-user or small business without their own support.

It may well be fine for users in a domain environment where privlidges should be/are tightly controlled, but that fact remains that a lot of holes that affect end-users and small businesses have been patched in SP2. These will continue to be patched for XP, even through the launch of vista. In any event, any patches for similar exploits or issues will be issues at a later date for 2K.

M$ have said there will be no SP5 for Windows 2000 and mainstream support wrapped up last year. This means no major patches, unless there is a lot of screaming going on. This is critical for home users and small businesses. Bearing in mind that support stopped last year, and looking into the future, I cant see a reason why one would now choose 2000 over XP for a user in thge OP's situation.

Other little things such as code execution prevention, although not perfect, helps matters for less tech savvy users.

Again, I make the point although somthing suits you, it does not mean that it is suitable for other users.

zilog jones wrote:

Sorry, I didn't word that very well - I'm by no means saying you wouldn't need a firewall! But I've been using Opera for years *never* get any spyware/malware from websites when using it, no matter how dodgy.

I was referring to spyware only, and I still think its madness. How will this protect you from spyware contained within apps? You would get away without a software firewall, provided you have a hardware one with your BB connection. Still a software firewall is good as you can regulate the outgoing connections which can be used to "fool" your hardware one.

Download and run this for me:
http://members.home.nl/mloman/hitmanpro241.exel, site is not in english, but the app is.

It might make about 40mins, but it will run a series of antispyware tools automaticaly and give you a report at the end. I would be fairly surprised if it doesnt find anything on your machine.

zilog_jones

SouperComputer wrote:

I was referring to spyware only, and I still think its madness. How will this protect you from spyware contained within apps?

Erm, don't download ****ty software off the internet? If you're going to get something you're not sure about, check up on it first and for free software check reputable websites like SorceForge and (to an extent) Download.com

I've been using Opera and plain common sense, and have never got spyware on my PC in years (outside of tracker cookies, though they're barely spyware), even with my idiot brother going online with it. I occasionally run Ad-Aware or MS AntiSpyware, but they never find anything outside of cookies.