Adware - The New Scourge

[mubs]

For savvy users I think we should continue to push for not logging in all the time as admin. They should come to understand that in today's wired world you need one login for daily driving and one for maintenance.

I wish. I support a medical practice that uses a very advanced practice management system (paperless, workflow, etc.) While this sw is really pioneering new advances (founder/chief architect is a physician who got an MBA and turned an entrepreneur), it requires users to have admin rights. They are fully committed to and an all Microft shop. Go figure. I never understood why. Every user PC has the same Windows login and password, with full admin rights (the application has its own login).

While they are wizes at the functional aspects of the software, they don't seem to be that savvy on the technical side (very restrictive in how things should be set up, what equipment can be used, etc.) Where I could, I've defied them and gone with a product or set up that made more sense. But I have to kowtow on most of the issues; the application is so crucial to the practice and I can't piss off the sw vendor too much.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't agree on this. Maybe ideally but it is such a pain to have to logout and log back in as administrator to do something. Sure you can use run as to do most things but I made myself a local admin a long time ago and never looked back.

[snip]

I think having a separate maintenance/administrator account is a huge waste of time.

To quote Tannin: I can't believe you said that.

It is exceptionally important that anyone in a support-type position have a good understanding of what can and cannot be done as a normal user. Even if you're the smartest IT guy in the world, you're eventually going to take for granted the fact that, as an administrator, you can install a printer, where a normal user can't. Part of the reason for maintenence/admin accounts is to enforce that difference. This is an even bigger deal nowadays, since security is coming to the forefront of IT concerns.

Another facet of this is that, as a normal user, there's less you can do to screw up a system. Yeah, you're admin-worthy, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't do something stupid like accidently browse a site that installed new.net without notifying you. The idea behind runas/admin login is to keep those special tools and powers for just the time you need them, and so that you don't take those special powers for granted.


It takes maybe 60 seconds to do a normal Windows login/logout. Is that too much to ask? Or do you spend all day installing drivers and changing the system clock?

 

[Will Rickards WT]

RE: separate user/admin accounts

For businesses, that is a choice they have to make. My particular business has almost everyone as a local administrator. We are mostly programmers and from time to time need local administrator rights to our machines. We don't get the domain administrator account.

For most of my clients, law firms mostly, they wouldn't ever do that. And I can understand that. They even go so far as to lock down which applications you can run and stop right clicking on webpages (really annoying when you are testing your web app for them using one of their machines) and stop my favorite shortcuts (windows + E, windows + R).

I used to be an advocate about separate accounts and even do it at home.
Then I got fed up with having to log in as an administrator on my home machine to do stuff. I spend way too little time on that machine to care.

Yes 60 seconds is too long. I don't want to have to logout either. Multiple simultaneous logins should be in every windows OS, not just windows XP home. 'Run as' works sometimes. But I didn't know about 'run as' for a long time because in win2k it wasn't in the default right click menu. You have to hold shift or ctrl or something to get it.

For any home user, including myself, I think it is a complete waste of time.

 

[blakerwry]

fast user switching has worked fine for me in XP home and pro as well as 2k3 when it's turned on...

 

[Mercutio]

It works on XP as long as the computer in question does not belong to a domain.

 

[Mercutio]

And in a story that should be a surprise to absolutely no one here...

 

[EdwardK]

I can anytime be another example of Time's client/customer. I have NAV2004, Ad-Adware, Spybot and Trojan Remover. I update these programs regularly and Ad-aware still picks up suspicious "stuff". This is because I have to use that damned IE at work.
An example where a user was forced to use P2P applications for non-illegal purposes was when the update for BF1942 was released. One of the update sites was so saturated that they pulled the update, and said the only way to get it is to use BitTorrent.

Cheers,
Edward

 

[ddrueding]

One of my clients just paid the ultimate price for their lack of attentiveness towards spyware...

"No default gateway for you!"

Without internet access, they should be able to keep out of trouble...

 

[Santilli]

I just did a fast install of 2000, thanks to a legal program, Dissomaster, requiring an old version disk that we didn't have. We had the newer version, but that wouldn't work to stop the loop.

Anyway, the point is, I ended up with Real Player and some other crappy programs I never intentionally installed on it, and had to go back and remove them.

I guess you have to be real careful with these installer disks these days.

RegCleaner is your friend in 2000. Need an XP version of it.

s

 

[Clocker]

THis might be useful:

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Spyware, adware, browser hijackers, and dialers are some of the fastest-growing threats on the Internet today.
By simply browsing to a web page, you could find your computer to be the brand-new host of one of these unwanted fiends!

The most important step you can take is to secure your system. And SpywareBlaster is the most powerful protection program available.



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Block spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox.
Restrict the actions of potentially dangerous sites in Internet Explorer.

SpywareBlaster can help keep your system spyware-free and secure, without interfering with the "good side" of the web.

And unlike other programs, SpywareBlaster does not have to remain running in the background.

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