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Thread: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

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    Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Sometime ago on these forums I read a post about not surfing (I think) as an Administrator, does this mean

    a) you can login in to Windows with an Admin account but when running Firefox, right click it and run it as a 'limited account'

    or

    b) do not login to Windows as Admin when intending to surf the net

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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Generally, B

    This is much easier on Vista, which has a pretty functional privilege escalation system in UAC

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    you should use a limited user account 99.9 percent of the time.
    I have done this for my parents computer running windows xp after i made sure all the applications worked under it.

    If you use an adminitrator account everything runs as administrator.
    since legit websites are being hacked even safe surfing wont protect you from malware.

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    Senior[ish] Member Singh400's Avatar
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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Vista + UAC + Limited Account + IE Protected Mode = should provide enough protection.

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Whatever OS you are using, you should run with the least privileges needed to do the job. As a computer owener, you have two roles, user and administrator. As admin, you are installing applications, doing housekeeping etc, as a user you are using it to do something productive (!) and that should be a low priviledge account.

    Unfortunately Windows hasn't encouraged that division of roles, and some sloppily written apps will only run with admin priviliges.

    Many (most?) windows users routinely run as admin - dangerrous because if they trigger malware as that user, the malware inherits those priviliges and has access to all OS capabilities.
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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Unfortunately Windows hasn't encouraged that division of roles, and some sloppily written apps will only run with admin priviliges.
    It should be pointed out that while historically this has been the case the switch to a more restrictive (and everything else that Peter says is absolutely bang on the head) model is what caused a large amount of whining with the introduction of UAC.

    UAC is there to protect you - use it.

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Or Windows + VirtualBox + Linux = win.

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    It's just a common sense rule of thumb so often ignored.

    Never run as admin (or root if you're a linux/unix type).

    Use the admin account/privileges for administration, not for day-to-day stuff.

    Like wot everyone else has sed
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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    There's a nice compromise: Create a minimal privileges account just for when you're browsing the, <ahem> less savoury neighbourhoods of the internet.

    (Has the advantage also of leaving your browser history sparkly clean, but not suspiciously empty should your other half occasionally use your computer)

    Coupled with common sense, decent antivirus/firewall and an up to date system, you'll probably be fine.
    Last edited by stytagm; 01-04-2009 at 11:28 PM. Reason: Spelling
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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Quote Originally Posted by Singh400 View Post
    Vista + UAC + Limited Account + IE Protected Mode = should provide enough protection.
    Still on XP , but what's IE protected mode?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stringent View Post
    Or Windows + VirtualBox + Linux = win.
    Er em what's VirtualBox?

    Quote Originally Posted by stytagm View Post
    There's a nice compromise: Create a minimal privileges account just for when you're browsing the, <ahem> less savoury neighbourhoods of the internet.
    What are those 'less savoury...' ?


    I've always told friends etc. to have windows updates, anti virus and firewall installed and regularly updated, looks like I'll have to add another bit of advice now

    A couple of days ago I (along with all of my niece's contacts) received a spam email from her, I think she's got some malware on her computer, time to advise her about the Limited Account (and sort her computer out)

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Quote Originally Posted by amjedm View Post
    Still on XP , but what's IE protected mode?
    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...cted-mode.aspx


    Quote Originally Posted by amjedm View Post
    Er em what's VirtualBox?
    http://www.virtualbox.org/


    Quote Originally Posted by amjedm View Post
    A couple of days ago I (along with all of my niece's contacts) received a spam email from her, I think she's got some malware on her computer, time to advise her about the Limited Account (and sort her computer out)
    Could be, but not necesarily. A couple of years ago, I had a few months where I was being inundated with bounces from bad email addresses. Someone had spoofed my email address and was sending spa out on it. It didn't come from me directly, or my email server, but I was getting all the bounces. Hundreds a day. This could have happened to your niece, but you should still clear out her system and make sure everything is secure and up to date anyway.

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Quote Originally Posted by amjedm View Post


    I've always told friends etc. to have windows updates, anti virus and firewall installed and regularly updated, looks like I'll have to add another bit of advice now

    A couple of days ago I (along with all of my niece's contacts) received a spam email from her, I think she's got some malware on her computer, time to advise her about the Limited Account (and sort her computer out)
    A vitual box is a real computer running a virtual version of an OS on top of software running on the real computer. The software makes it a vitual computer - hence a virtual machine.

    For the rest, that is good advice. As for the e mail, it may be that the email from address was forged - it may not have come from her machine. Check the headers and you should be able to track the path back.
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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    My niece's computer - I think the antivirus and firewall weren't up to date so tempted to believe malware but will check the header path.

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Hey guys, I wonder if any of you more experienced users out there could give me the benefit of your experience please?...

    I'm a new Vista user (two weeks use so far) - I currently just have the one Admin user account and have installed/configured numerous programs. After reading this thread I thought it would be prudent to try setting up a limited user account for day-to-day use but have found it a royal PITA. For one thing, half the programs I installed on the Admin account didn't seem to be available to this "new user" and others that I use all the time such as Mailwasher Pro (painstakingly configured with details of at least half a dozen email accounts, spam filters, blacklists and whatnot) started up with zero config information. I really don't want the hassle of re-doing all this stuff again or trying to find the stored data, which seems to be all over the place (am using 64-bit, which is a new experience for me), and trying to fudge it by copying it to the new user's folders. So I have abandoned the idea and deleted the second user for now.

    I guess I made an elementary mistake by using the Admin account so extensively to start with?

    Now I'm wondering if the way forward is to make a second account, set it as the Admin a/c, then change my present main user a/c to one with limited privileges. That way I might stand a chance of keeping all the software configurations that I've done thus far. Is this a Good Plan, or are there any 'gotchas' in this scenario I should be aware of? I have certain utilities like True Image, for instance - would I be able to run these under either a/c if I so wished or am I likely to find that the new "Admin" doesn't have initial access to some of these because that a/c didn't exist when the programs were installed?

    As a long term, single account XP user, this is all very confusing for me and seems unecessarily complicated and difficult and my experience so far has been very off-putting. So any advice from someone who's been there and worked out the best/easiest way of proceeding in these circumstances would be most welcome indeed.

    Sorry if this seems a bit of a newbie question but I am pretty new to this Vista lark .

    Cheers!

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    Quote Originally Posted by NightOwl View Post
    Hey guys, I wonder if any of you more experienced users out there could give me the benefit of your experience please?...

    I'm a new Vista user (two weeks use so far) - I currently just have the one Admin user account and have installed/configured numerous programs. After reading this thread I thought it would be prudent to try setting up a limited user account for day-to-day use but have found it a royal PITA. For one thing, half the programs I installed on the Admin account didn't seem to be available to this "new user" and others that I use all the time such as Mailwasher Pro (painstakingly configured with details of at least half a dozen email accounts, spam filters, blacklists and whatnot) started up with zero config information. I really don't want the hassle of re-doing all this stuff again or trying to find the stored data, which seems to be all over the place (am using 64-bit, which is a new experience for me), and trying to fudge it by copying it to the new user's folders. So I have abandoned the idea and deleted the second user for now.

    I guess I made an elementary mistake by using the Admin account so extensively to start with?

    Now I'm wondering if the way forward is to make a second account, set it as the Admin a/c, then change my present main user a/c to one with limited privileges. That way I might stand a chance of keeping all the software configurations that I've done thus far. Is this a Good Plan, or are there any 'gotchas' in this scenario I should be aware of? I have certain utilities like True Image, for instance - would I be able to run these under either a/c if I so wished or am I likely to find that the new "Admin" doesn't have initial access to some of these because that a/c didn't exist when the programs were installed?

    As a long term, single account XP user, this is all very confusing for me and seems unecessarily complicated and difficult and my experience so far has been very off-putting. So any advice from someone who's been there and worked out the best/easiest way of proceeding in these circumstances would be most welcome indeed.

    Sorry if this seems a bit of a newbie question but I am pretty new to this Vista lark .

    Cheers!
    As long as you leave UAC (those "do you want to do this" popup windows) turned ON, then it's safe to be admin in vista - essentially you're not "admin" you're "potential admin", and you only gain admin powers at specific moments when you click an "allow" button

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    Re: Surfing - Admin or Limited Account

    simply rename the admin account to your name and then change rename the other acocunt to admin and change it to admin.

    then you have access to all your programs.

    btw standard user accounts still have quite alot less rights than admin with UAC.

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