Dialup security question.

HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
edited December 2007 in Science & Tech
I'm building an updated pc for my inlaws and they insist on still having dial up service from toastnet.
OS is Win XP Home.
One reason is they live in NJ half of the yr and Fla the other half. With toastnet they can have internet access from both places on one account. And it's only $7 per mnth payed quarterly.
Father in law doesn't really want to pay $19.95 for DSL lite. Bellsouth dsl.
Which would be a great improvement over dialup.
My question;
Setting up dialup with standard fax-modem, AVG personal and Spybot Search & destroy with resident on.
Do I need to turn on win xp home firewall with those 2 programs or will they protect from intrusion?
He only turns it on for checking stock portfolios, insurance info, e-mailing, faxing, and such.
Then he shuts it down.
Mother in law uses it for card games, mahjong, etc. and doesn't go out online.
The less I confuse my father in law with the better.
He's the one that will use it most of the time on the internet.
Thnx for replies.

Comments

  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited December 2007
    Dialup...God. It's max of 8kb down/8kb up. There's no point in securing it if you've got a virus scanner already.
  • ThelemechThelemech Victoria Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    I'd throw the firewall on anyway just for the added(minimal) protection. With all the updates etc that should be enough. Or you could use Sygate(no longer supported but pretty secure) or something similar.
  • HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    Thnx guys,
    I was planning to turning it on but was hesitant because I didn't want to get calls about firewall blocking access.
    I can walk him through granting access if blocked though.
    I surely wouldn't want someone to get his passwords/ contact info/ or sign in info, for his stock trading sites!
    They are all secured sites anyway.
    I did set him up with Firefox (latest version).
    Now lets hope he uses it instead of IE.
    Pc's all updated.... 122 updates for XP Home! Thats all critical except about 5 for software and 2 for hardware.
    Still have to take it over there and setup their printer and dial up.
    Thnx again for replies guys. Appreciate it.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    just delete all the IE icons, and give FF an IE skin.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    Trust me, you need the firewall turned on with dialup. With dialup, you're not behind a router, so you are directly exposed to the net - never mind the slow speed. XP SP2 will get compromised in a matter of minutes during random port scans if you don't have at least a basic firewall.
  • HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    Thrax wrote:
    just delete all the IE icons, and give FF an IE skin.

    Hehehe,
    Good idea, but he'd recognize the change in the program.

    Yea prime,
    I started updates on it without firewall and had to totally wipe the drive and start install over because of trojans/viruses getting loaded on it.
    Live & learn. I just wasn't thinking about it being dialup and that happening.
    I've been on DSL with a router & modem for yrs.
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