Zipped Files & Viruses

[Legion Kreinak]

Is it true that if a file remains zipped, even if it contains a virus, you can't get it?

Can a person get viruses just from surfing the net, without downloading anything?

Also, if you had/have viruses, and you wanna transfer MP3s (just an example) over to a new computer, should you do it, or can they attach to music files as well? I would think simply scanning the files you wish to transfer would suffice, but I'm not an expert at this, so...

 

[01001010]

You can get a Viruses anyway possible. Even while surfing the net. If there is are holes in software, there are hackers to, well, exploit them.


I'm not sure about the zipped file question though.

 

[mammikoura]

Not sure about the zipped files.
But u can get viruses by just being connected to the internet, without doing anything.
And to answer the 3rd question I have never encountered a virus that attaches itself to music files etc. Usually the viruses are located in the windows folder.
And a few times I have saved some files to an external hdd then reformatted (because of a virus) and then taken the files to my hdd from the external one.
And no viruses came with them.

 

[reece296]

I don't think you can get a virus from a zipped folder. Because when you download (I think it is zipped files over msn) it says once you open it you could get virus if 1 is contained but not before.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

How can you get a virus just from being connected to the internet? Is it likely to happen, or just a technical possibility?

 

[reece296]

it is likely. The infomation from the internet which is sent via the modem can carry virus. Without any protecting you are 99% to get them from the internet.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

That's far from comforting. Is there any superior anti-virus program? Firewall? I wanna make sure that, once I get a new computer, I can protect myself from harm.

One thing that's problematic, though, is that when I send files to friends via AIM, it tops out at 16 kb/s. I receive them at much higher speeds (10x faster, literally) but outgoing stuff is so slow. Anyone know why this is?

 

[reece296]

I recommend AVG Free, Zone Alarm, Ad-aware SE, Microsoft Anti-spyware. It should be quite secure with that.

As for AIM i cannot help you. Post a seperate thread in Instant Messengers section.

 

[Cx]

There is virtually no way to completely secure(); your computer. There's thousands of bots just scanning port ranges for an exploitable box. If you have *Nix system, just check system logs. Failed SSH attempts, random / weird / misc connections for httpd. These aren't people, they're bots.

 

[mammikoura]

That's far from comforting. Is there any superior anti-virus program? Firewall? I wanna make sure that, once I get a new computer, I can protect myself from harm.

One thing that's problematic, though, is that when I send files to friends via AIM, it tops out at 16 kb/s. I receive them at much higher speeds (10x faster, literally) but outgoing stuff is so slow. Anyone know why this is?

Well if u want to pay then I'd say that NOD32 anti-virus is the best. Never tried it myself but I've heard that it's great. AntiVir also is very good, and absolutely free. (there is a payed version too, but the free one has done an exellent job for me)

As for superior firewalls, get a router which has a firewall.
When I enable the 2nd firewall in the router I don't have to worry about a thing. I don't even need to use a software firewall when it's on. Never had anything bad happen to my pc when the 2nd firewall was on.
Ofcourse the router is going to cost too, if u want something free I'd recommend sygate personal firewall.