On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 10:08:46 -0500, 'Doc wrote:

Cecil,
Each antivirus program is different, but most have
an email checking option, both incoming and outgoing
email. That option should be activated. The options
for email checking vary, some require that you decide
what to do about an infected email, some will 'clean'
it automatically or get rid of it in some way. Which
method you choose is up to you.
Firewalls are even more varied than antivirus
programs and are a real P.I.T.A. to set up correctly.
so R.T.F.M. is the key with them. It also depends on
the programs/TSR's you use. Some are not safe at all.
Richard listed a site in his post that is very very good
about telling you the how/what/where about spamming and
virus/worm/?? activities. The utilities on that site
work, are a good idea, and I recommend them.
'Doc

PS - These virus 'floods' are still a P.I.T.A. and I
have to delete them, but they stand NO chance of
infecting my machine.

Hi Doc,

To again offer that link:
http://grc.com/default.htm
to obtain security fixes BEFORE the viruses are diagnosed through
autopsy. I've been living quite free of these problems (aside from
stupid Comcast) WITHOUT ONE MS security (sic) upgrade for 8 years.

I also have not used an "antivirus" program in 12 years. In that same
time I have probably downloaded several 10's of GB of software, run
it, kept some, discarded most, and to no ill effect. In fact, I am
probably my own worst enemy when some 15 years ago I was writing a
file interface where one wrong bit erased my hard drive before my jaw
could sag.

Yesterday only two (2) emails arrived and were caught by one of 7
email filters in my purchased version of Agent - all of them set to
trash porn. No other email at all (pretty slow day). They may have
been part of this latest Virus, perhaps not, I will never know and I
don't care either way. Clearly 80% of those who suffer and complain
have some sort of Masochistic need to feed their habit.

The folks at Agent are about to release version 2 which will have many
more configurable features like multiple accounts support, multiple
connection support, folders within folders (for hierarchal email and
article storage) and all while maintaining a safe separation between
sanity and MS. I will only have to pay an upgrade fee, but I would
buy into it full price without hesitation.

I also use Agnitum Outpost Firewall. Visit:
http://www.agnitum.com/
This blows away nearly all the ads that fill up the browser display
(leaving only their default titles as links). When an ad slips
through to annoy me, I just add it to the list Outpost ignores
downloading. I can set any application's level of trust and block
traffic in configurable settings (however, default Outpost works quite
well out of the box) - and this is the FREE version.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC