Home servers, Internet access & anti-virus

[Charles L. Cotton]

I use AVG for virus protection at home, at the office, and on our office server. The ones on the office desktops and server are paid versions, the one I use at home is the free version. I switched to AVG from Norton because Norton was a resource hog and AVG utilized much less memory (and I believe CPU time).

When AVG upgraded to Version 8.0, everything changed, at least on the free versions at home. A full scan of my laptop used to take about 1.5 to 2 hrs; now it takes over 8 hrs!! I've researched this and it appears a lot of people are having the same problem and it also appears there is a mass exodus from AVG. I guess I'm going to have to do the same.

I think I know the answer to this, but is there a way I can set up our home server such that all Internet connections run through the server, rather than going directly through the router (wireless or wired) to the Internet? If this is possible, could we rely upon the anti-virus software on the server and not run it on the desktops and laptops. Obviously, we still need AV software on the laptops for when we are traveling, but we could disable it at home, if the server would protect us.

Thanks,
Chas.

[russ]

I think I know the answer to this, but is there a way I can set up our home server such that all Internet connections run through the server, rather than going directly through the router (wireless or wired) to the Internet? If this is possible, could we rely upon the anti-virus software on the server and not run it on the desktops and laptops. Obviously, we still need AV software on the laptops for when we are traveling, but we could disable it at home, if the server would protect us.

You can setup Linux as a Internet gateway for all machines on your network and install a very robust firewall on the
Linux machine. But you will still need some sort of AVS for your Windows machines behind the firewall. Their may
be something out there that will sniff all packets coming in and out of the server but i would bet it would slow
things down considerable especially if its serving several machines.

[Stupid]

it's probably late to comment, but i for one am against using AV software. I think we should fight virus just like fight fires - cut the sources out. the major sources nowadays are:
1. Email
filter out all executable attachment and zip files
2. Internet browsing
implement some filter such as Surfcontrol or websense
or only go to known good sites
3. sharing USB drives.
Don't do this.

After these, with Windows XP firewall, you don't need to worry about virus, certainly no need to scan it everyday.

[Mike1951]

it's probably late to comment, but i for one am against using AV software. I think we should fight virus just like fight fires - cut the sources out. the major sources nowadays are:
1. Email
filter out all executable attachment and zip files
2. Internet browsing
implement some filter such as Surfcontrol or websense
or only go to known good sites
3. sharing USB drives.
Don't do this.

After these, with Windows XP firewall, you don't need to worry about virus, certainly no need to scan it everyday.

Let's see, you've just eliminated the reasons for owning a computer.

I guess you could still create a spreadsheet or Word document from scratch, as long as you don't share it with anyone.

[Stupid]

it's probably late to comment, but i for one am against using AV software. I think we should fight virus just like fight fires - cut the sources out. the major sources nowadays are:
1. Email
filter out all executable attachment and zip files
2. Internet browsing
implement some filter such as Surfcontrol or websense
or only go to known good sites
3. sharing USB drives.
Don't do this.

After these, with Windows XP firewall, you don't need to worry about virus, certainly no need to scan it everyday.

Let's see, you've just eliminated the reasons for owning a computer.

I guess you could still create a spreadsheet or Word document from scratch, as long as you don't share it with anyone.

I didn't. Both Surf Control and Websense allow you to specifically select what you want to filter; so is any email filter.

[NcongruNt]

The solution you propose isn't how I would go about it. There are other sources besides the internet where unknown viruses may reside - usb drives, CDROMS, compressed files that won't match ordinary fingerprinting, mutated versions not yet in the definitions, etc. It would behoove you to keep AV software running on any of the Microsoft systems you own.

If the source of the problem is the slowness of the AV software, I would recommend getting something else. There is an excellent AV suite called Avast! (ya know, what pirates shout) that I recommend to everyone I know. My dad has been using it for years on his computers (business and personal). Its licensing is similar to AVG: home use is free, only requires registration every 14 months. Business machines have paid subscriptions.

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