http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000803.html
Thats right, Vista boost, switch your user account type to a standard user and get an instant performance boost!
And get rid of that norton antivirus, 2368% slower disk access? 48% slower boot time? 20% cpu speed degradation? wtf?
Security and Performance
Moderator: Moderators
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LathanStanley
- Posts: 1429
- Joined: 20 Jun 2005, 05:16
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clericvash
- Posts: 1394
- Joined: 05 Oct 2004, 01:05
AVG does the job, may not be brilliant but its the least impacting antivirus. The real security breaches are from the users who dont think or systems that havent got the latest patches.avast! 4.7 Home 4% 8% 115%
AVG 7.1 Free 15% 0% 19%
http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/other/ ... ows_down/5
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Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09
Interesting... But running in a protected account would I think be much more inconvenient than having slower disk access (I have AVG and windows defender.)
Is there a reason though to use a protected account instead of user account control? (currently I do neither.)
Is there a reason though to use a protected account instead of user account control? (currently I do neither.)
Last edited by Lindir The Green on 20 Aug 2007, 01:27, edited 1 time in total.
Under Vista, Administrator accounts are subject to numerous additional security features when things like UAC are turned on.
For example, registry virtualization, preventing arbitrary registry changes.
However under a standard account these proactive features arent necessary. The vast majority of attack avenues for malware become dead ends on a standard suer account. Sadly Microsoft started a convention in windows a few years ago where the default account type was administrator, which persists. To get around this they implemented a lot of proactive security features to protect administrator accounts.
The morale of the storey:
Only use admin accounts when you really need to. Standard accounts are always safer and faster, regardless of wether your running Vista XP 2000 or Ubuntu/redhat/etc
For example, registry virtualization, preventing arbitrary registry changes.
However under a standard account these proactive features arent necessary. The vast majority of attack avenues for malware become dead ends on a standard suer account. Sadly Microsoft started a convention in windows a few years ago where the default account type was administrator, which persists. To get around this they implemented a lot of proactive security features to protect administrator accounts.
The morale of the storey:
Only use admin accounts when you really need to. Standard accounts are always safer and faster, regardless of wether your running Vista XP 2000 or Ubuntu/redhat/etc
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Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09
User runnign UAC+Admin looks at a shady website.
Shady website uses exploit to install spyware.
UAC might give a warning but therell always be that 1 method of getting around it.
OR
User running standard account looks at a shady website.
Shady website uses exploit to install spyware. Exploit runs into dead end and fails to install, as standard users dont have the necessary access.
User continues surfing shady websites.
Never run as an administrator. Vista changes some things around so you really can work under Vista as a standard user without constantly flitting back and forth between an admin account and a standard account.
The simple act of switching to a standard account makes a huge swathe of exploits useless and renders a lot of malware inert.
Shady website uses exploit to install spyware.
UAC might give a warning but therell always be that 1 method of getting around it.
OR
User running standard account looks at a shady website.
Shady website uses exploit to install spyware. Exploit runs into dead end and fails to install, as standard users dont have the necessary access.
User continues surfing shady websites.
Never run as an administrator. Vista changes some things around so you really can work under Vista as a standard user without constantly flitting back and forth between an admin account and a standard account.
The simple act of switching to a standard account makes a huge swathe of exploits useless and renders a lot of malware inert.