[quote="Bees"]hehehe. fbcdn is facebook content delivery network, not facebook canada :D[/quote]

Either way, it's required to make facebook work. They run half their scripts off that site.

[quote="Atelo"]As for making Facebook work, the only two needed approval for me are Facebook.com and Fbcdn.net (for Canada).[/quote]

hehehe. fbcdn is facebook content delivery network, not facebook canada :D

here's an article about the guy that won a string of pwn2own contests on apple hardware/software.

[url]http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0412/technology-apple-hackers-charlie-miller.html[/url]

I do remember another interview where he did state IE had the same flaws but they actually hide where the data goes compared to apple so it's harder to implement in a windows environment.

[quote="Tholia"]Windows is the safest and most secure commercial operating system on the planet.[/quote]

References, please? :)

{And please understand - my intention is neither to incite nor to attack; I am an engineer, and the data I have from decades in the computer industry drive my positions. That said, I am an engineer, and realize that my data may be outdated, minunderstood, or misinformed, and so am always happy to receive new data (Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard, be evil! :D) and - where warranted - change my positions.}

In fairness to Microsoft's OS, I'll go on record that Mac OS X and Linux (and VMS, and, and, and...) are all pretty open to attack. ([url=http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2011/03/pwn2own-day-one-safari-ie8-fall-chrome-unchallenged.ars]pwn2own 2011 demonstrated that neither Safari nor IE 8 have what it takes to stop a technically advanced attacker[/url].) However, Microsoft's approach of tightly integrating applications (e.g., Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office) with the base OS cause vulnerabilities in the application to have a deeper impact than - from a security design perspective - they should. Apple seems to have followed this path with OS X/Safari, as well, although I haven't yet seen any data yet that indicates they integrate their productivity or home user software packages into the base OS. And this deep integration, while making a lot of things nifty and helpful for end-users, also reduces security. Which is why I regularly recommend that people use a) a browser that is not manufactured by their OS vendor, and that supports ad-blocking features, whether natively or via plugins, and b) application software that does not tightly integrate with the OS. In reality, however, most people just use what's there. Security is hard.

[quote="Atelo"]You gotta love it when a malware program lists tracking cookies as "critical threats".[/quote]

Yep...

They did it (some still do) for years, and scared the pants outta people with it.

That is one reason why no security software I use will ever be something I have to pay for. There are too many great free options that compete only on features, reliability and overall awesomeness. The fact that the "best" AV has been so many different names over the years, and that there is no true best at the moment is a good thing. The competition is healthy, and those simple tricks that Norton and Symantec played for years just aren't to be found anymore.

And yeah... the "hack to own" the last few years have been the same guy.. often the same type of security hole. And he's said a few times Mac was easier to implement because Windows does random memory addressing for this exploit that makes it harder to predict where the exploit will be in memory.

Unfortunately I agree with Tholia. I've read about many hacker/security conventions where they challenge people to hack an OS. Windows is usually their last choice since the others are easier to crack. Think about it. Windows has been the primary OS for 90% of consumers for decades. It's been attacked more than any other OS and those holes have been fixed. (Yes more are found every day but they get harder and harder to find as time goes on) The same can't be said for OSX or Linux. If OSX were to take the forefront and immediately hit 90% usage, you'd see some of the largest security patches released in the history of OS's because it hasn't had 20 years of attacks to deal with.

That said, Tholia is slightly biased since he works at MS...

You gotta love it when a malware program lists tracking cookies as "critical threats".

[quote="Goodgnome"](has any software company anywhere in the world had more, larger security holes than are found in Microsoft's key software offerings - Windows & Office?)[/quote]

Windows is the safest and most secure commercial operating system on the planet.

We use MSE at home and the related corporate version (FEP) at work.

malware protection should probably be two separate categories. Realtime monitors should be judged primarily on the quality of their OS integration, which many third-party vendors are terrible at. Very sensitive detection with large numbers of positives, a large fraction of which are usually false positives, are more appropriate to a cleaning tool in the hands of a professional. trying to do both in one tool has not worked for anybody so far.

well, it's worked for selling AV software; certainly some companies get a lot of mileage from reporting fifty of the same tracking cookies as fifty vulnerabilities.

Personal preference: Avast!

McAfee & Norton are both competent products. However, they both tend to resource hogging more than any other AV products I've ever used. I have a philosophical issue that prevents me from using MS Security products - it seems to me like asking the fox to guard the henhouse from inside, with the doors closed (has any software company anywhere in the world had more, larger security holes than are found in Microsoft's key software offerings - Windows & Office?), so I discount that on those grounds. It may be a solid product, but the track record isn't there.

I also use Spybot to help clean up cruft that lands on systems, and run Adblock Plus on all my browsers, and FBPurity ([url]http://www.fbpurity.com[/url]) on any systems that I use to access Facebook.

So far, 5 years into using Avast, 0 infections. :)

{edit: Oh, and I use Avast free, because licensing costs are painful in my house (5 active systems). I don't run any extra firewall software or anything of that nature, because I'm behind a NAT router, and I don't want the extra overhead on my systems.}