Peer to Peer

[kshotton45]

As Eeyore correctly points out on another thread, we don't condone illicit software, but! if you are determined to take that path beware, software from the likes of Limewire, Kaazaa, Winmx, 306 Share etc, is riddled with all kinds of nasties. Sooner or later, your PC will 'pick' something up.
There are loads of copies to be had on e-bay. Although most are probably illegal, the sellers claim they are legitimate.

Make up your own mind !!

Keith.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by kshotton45

As Eeyore correctly points out on another thread, we don't condone illicit software, but! if you are determined to take that path beware, software from the likes of Limewire, Kaazaa, Winmx, 306 Share etc, is riddled with all kinds of nasties. Sooner or later, your PC will 'pick' something up.
There are loads of copies to be had on e-bay. Although most are probably illegal, the sellers claim they are legitimate.

Make up your own mind !!

Keith.

like you say keith I'm sure that we definitely dont condone any form of piracy - (tho i kind of think some software houses ask for it by pricing software at £1k or more in the uk when its a quarter of that in the states - but i digress)

however if you are determined to go that route my advice would be to a) make sure your virus/worm/trojan protection is fully upto date , and b) install the software on a hot machine (ie one that doesnt have anything important on it - and that is expendable) and run it for a bit before moving it accros to your main machine.

[beckiscott]

It is sometimes worth check the EULA (End user license agreement) - you know the thing you click 'AGREE' to when you're installing software! I have Quark 7 & CS3 (both valued at over £1000 each) at work and both EULAs allow me to install on my machine at home, as long as it is the same platform, and not used concurrently. I also have microsoft office installed on my home computer legitimately as part of the works license.

To follow up on eeyores advice... "a) make sure your virus/worm/trojan protection is fully upto date"
.... or you could always buy a apple mac and run what is one of the most secure operating systems available?! Happily downloading what you want without any threat or any known viruses that will attack or harm your machine!!

;-)

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by beckiscott

To follow up on eeyores advice... "a) make sure your virus/worm/trojan protection is fully upto date"
.... or you could always buy a apple mac and run what is one of the most secure operating systems available?! Happily downloading what you want without any threat or any known viruses that will attack or harm your machine!!

;-)

it is true that apple is a more secure platform than pc but it is not tottally immune there are viruses written specifically for the mac platform and some trojans/dataloggers/ and what have you are non platform specific anyway - so even those with macs would be well advised to get some decent security software and not to download from dodgy sites

see here for example
Mac hacking competition winner mocks Apple security - ZDNet UK

[beckiscott]

Originally Posted by eeyore

it is true that apple is a more secure platform than pc but it is not tottally immune there are viruses written specifically for the mac platform and some trojans/dataloggers/ and what have you are non platform specific anyway - so even those with macs would be well advised to get some decent security software and not to download from dodgy sites

see here for example
Mac hacking competition winner mocks Apple security - ZDNet UK

In the 10 years i have been on a mac i haven't had a sniff of a virus; nor have any of my mac using mates. There is actually no known virus that can affect the osX platform. (osX is now about 7 years old - how many 7 year old windows platforms dont have a virus to their name!). Gotta say though every pc user i know has had a virus or something that has caused data loss or resulted in a computer than is so slow its useless!. Any sign of 'security issues' that have been purposefully developed to prove it can be done over the past few years are always addressed with security updates by apple within days. An article that is 18months old isn't really gonna scare me into backtracking!

Anti virus software for mac is like when shops sell you extended warranties that cost as much as the product you're buying - its an easy way of making money playing on peoples fears! And i aint suckered into it!

An apple a day keeps the doctor (and all those nasty viruses) away! ;-)

[HowlinWolf]

Well written, beckiscott. I moved over to iMacs late last year, and will never go back to PC's and Windoze. This was on the recommendation from a long time Mac user, who in all his time of running them has never had a virus. Macs enable the user get things done, and without fuss: it's why the pro's use them.

HW

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by beckiscott

There is actually no known virus that can affect the osX platform.

well except for

OSX Macarena , OSX.Leap.A (or OOMPA) - actually more of a worm that infects via ichat than a virus , OSX/Ingtona.A and OSX x86 and those are just the ones i found in 10 minuites googling

as well as these those running PC software on a Mac are also vulnerable to windows viruses plus of course phishing scams/fake websites etc are web based and dont care what platform you are using to access them

i'm not trying to scare you into doing anything , it is of course your choice what platform you use - i'm just pointing out that no ICT platform that connect to the net is truly safe from viral infection or other security issues and claiming that you dont need security software because you've never had an infection is about as sensible as claiming that you dont need car insurance because you've never had a crash.

[eeyore]

also i'd point out that in my life i have had five macs and five pc's (which were my own rather than family comps) - I ran anti virals on all of them and never got an infection and reliabilty wise they were about even.

Macs
standard "pizza box" mac - still works buit well out of date (4mb ram - 80mb hd)
Power mac - died for inexplicable causes after 3 years
Mac G3 - motherboard failure
Imac - Harddrive failue
mac power book overheated and caught fire

Pcs

HP laptop working fine but out of date (pen 3)
custom built gladator - hard drive failure
Iqon basic - unstable after overclock
packard bell - motherboard failure
compaq laptop - new and working fine

however what set them apart ( apart from the spontaneous combustion of the powerbook which wrote off my thesis and propelled me into PC land) was that mac software was much harder to source and much more expensive to buy , plus every employer i've had has had PC based systems and thus having a mac at home caused serious compatibility issues.

[Digiscoper62]

Originally Posted by eeyore

<snip>
however what set them apart ( apart from the spontaneous combustion of the powerbook which wrote off my thesis and propelled me into PC land) was that mac software was much harder to source and much more expensive to buy , plus every employer i've had has had PC based systems and thus having a mac at home caused serious compatibility issues.

Well said.
In a lot of forums I can't stand the "get Linux" or get any other OS except M$ for this very reason. There are certain software packages I need for other winter hobbies that none of these OS's have ever managed to create or port successfully. I am also at a stage in my life were I am very happy to "point n click", DOS was fun but life goes on ;-)

cheers

[Interpreter]

Originally Posted by Digiscoper62

Well said.
In a lot of forums I can't stand the "get Linux" or get any other OS except M$ for this very reason. There are certain software packages I need for other winter hobbies that none of these OS's have ever managed to create or port successfully. I am also at a stage in my life were I am very happy to "point n click", DOS was fun but life goes on ;-)

cheers

Pre DOS they all ran on 8k of memory and no HDD. I remember when getting the computer to say "Hello world" was the greatest achievement of all. My, how times have changed. In my office, I had the only computer with a hard drive. All of the others just had two 5.25 floppies.