Thomas Fernandez writes: > They are better than nothing.
Yes, but safe computing practices are better than A/V products, and they are free and do not interfere with the functioning of the OS. > Firewalls have nothing to do with AV software. They have a lot to do with safe computing, though. In theory, if you can trust your OS to service open ports properly, you may not need a firewall. In practice, many operating systems can't be trusted that far, especially in the case of general-purpose ports like those used by Windows for remote RPC or NetBIOS. > Correct, but impractical. It's very practical. I've been doing it for years. > I receive Excel files with executable code in the office. These are > legit, and I need to open them. How would I know whether one is > infected with a virus? - Only by scanning it. Of course, if it's a virus your scanner doesn't recognize, you'll be infected, anyway. You can open Excel files with Microsoft's free viewer. It won't run macros, but it will let you see the contents. This is sufficient in some cases. > Please educate me how to tell an infected file from a clean one > without a virus scanner. You don't run files unless they are from a trusted source. Files from a trusted source are clean by definition; files from untrusted sources are never run, so it doesn't matter if they are clean or not. -- Anthony __________________________________________________ Using The Bat! v3.0.1.33 on Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600 ________________________________________________ Current version is 3.0.1.33 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
