Need the Net, but Have No Money

[thecoalman]

Could an expert hacker get into my OS ?

They don't need to be experts. There is known exploits and known methods to exploit it, those exploits will never be patched.

Something to understand is there isn't someone sitting behind a keyboard trying to access your system. It's all automated, distributed through malware, webpages and already exploited machines that bounce from IP to IP looking for other machines to infect. Something else to keep in mind is the purpose isn't always to exploit you. They want to fly under the radar and use your computer in a bot net for scraping websites, DDOS attacks and other nefarious activities..... like exploiting other vulnerable machines.

Real world experience from many years ago during the XP days. I reinstalled XP with SP1, connected to the internet to update to SP3. After reboot installed AVG and I'm immediately getting notices about an infection. Between the time I connected to internet and SP3 update completed a vulnerability in XP1 was exploited and the only thing required was connecting the machine to the internet. What I ended up doing was downloading SP3, AVG and Zonealarm to install them before connecting to internet.

[thecoalman]

Nobody can trace for sure how many souls survive on Windows 7. Nobody.

For browsing you can get this from the user agent in every request. It's possible to spoof user agent but how many average people are doing that? No idea how reliable statcounter would but a company like Cloudflare would have fairly reliable data on percentage of users globally which could be used to infer totals. They break it down by basic OS but unfortunately doesn't appear they have specific versions of OS.

https://radar.cloudflare.com/

[cholla]

Hi thecoalman,
I do spoof my user agent.
I use an antivirus ,Malwarebytes.Spybot's Teatimer.
Software by Cyberreason & Foolishit.
I use an extensive hosts file & uBlock Origin.
Also during boot a root kit scan.
I'm an almost compulsive junk file cleaner.
I also have antivirus software that can be ran outside of Windows from a bootable flash drive.
I confess I do not do that as often as I should.
With all that if something is getting in none of these are stopping it or detecting it.
I almost forgot Windows firewall with settings made in Advanced.

[cholla]

@ thecoalman.
I'vused the botnet checks on:

GreyNoise IP Check
https://check.labs.greynoise.io/

www.spur.us/me

They came up "clean".
Anything else I can do ?

[thecoalman]

Anything else I can do ?

Install Linux instead of using Win7. If you need Win7 for specific software use it on machine disconnected from internet.

https://linuxmint.com/download.php

[cholla]

Thanks thecoalman,
I'm sure Linux is more secure.
Way in the past I used a Linux rescue disc to repair a Windows OS that would not boot.
I probably won't learn to use Linux.
So I will keep trying to make Windows 7 as secure as I can.

[thecoalman]

It's not much different than Windows, it's not like it was 20 years ago. Follow the link I posted above, you need 4GB+ USB stick. You can boot from USB and take it for test drive. You can also install on your computer from USB if that's what you want to do.

You can even try it out online, how cool is that? https://distrosea.com/start/linuxmint-22.3-cinnamon/

I've found suitable replacements for most Windows applications. It's also possible to run native Windows applications but your mileage will vary. Look up Wine.

[cholla]

I will look into running linux from USB.
I did try the demo.
There are times it would be handy.
I will still use Windows 7 for most things.
If I decide I like it enough I will add a hard drive just for linux.
Then instead of a dual boot I will have a triple boot.
I have heard of Wine but since I don't have linux I have not used it.

[thecoalman]

Wine is a install and forget application. There is no change in work flow and the installed application shows up in menus just like native Linux ones. The only thing I use it for is Notepad++. I've been using Notepad++ for so many years and use it so much it's more along the lines of not wanting to learn a different application.

There is a Linux port of Notepad++ but it's missing one critical feature, "Find in files", at least that was the case when I installed it. There is many other native Linux text editors, one I have installed is Geany and it's adequate but I still prefer Notepad++.

One application I used on Windows frequently was Winmerge, on Linux I switched to Meld and it's superior to Winmerge.... Point is it's mixed bag. One thing Linux does that is really nice is the Software Manager. If you want to install something like Libre Office, type in search box and install it.