Deep Freeze

[Galaxian]

http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp

not trying to spam or nothing but been using this for the past week or so and thought i'd share it cause its one of the most useful software i ever used, i know alot of schools use this.

i mostly like it cause my pc will never get sluggish and i dont have to install or run any adware/antivirus scanners or even have a firewall anymore which frees up alot of resources and boot times

however i have to recommend for anyone that tries this that you move the "my documents" folder to an unfrozen partition so that gamesaves..etc are kept updated as normal

as far as updating anything on a frozen drive it has a "thaw" option so you can make changes and is automatically frozen again on next reboot

i installed this after a fresh install of XP and configuration/driver updates..etc, its saved gigabytes on my drive that acronis trueimage once used and its nice to not have to use junk cleaners,scanners all the time

hope everyone finds this tool as useful as i have, definitly worth the $25 compared to all the money wasted on security tools etc.

[mjc]

Ok...yes, Deepfreeze is a legit program and yes it does do what it says...but as a method of total security, it leaves a lot to be desired.

True, infections won't 'stick' but that isn't really a problem.

Say you are running, fat and happy, with this...you are going to be less likely to patch any 'holes' or run any security updates..thereby making your system more vulnerable to infection.

There are also too many infectors that grab your personal data/financial info/etc before doing anything else and by the time you figure out that you need to reboot and restore it is too late...your identity/bank info has already been stolen.

Also a large number of infectors will run happily on your system, spreading themselves to all and sundry...until you reboot/restore. But until you do that, you just been spreading the virus/malware/etc...you were a carrier. A typhoid Mary...

For what it was originally designed to do...keep a scholastic/corporate network 'pristine' and let the users make some changes and the admins not have to worry about keeping strict 'config' rules...it is fine. But as a method of security...NO FRIGGIN' WAY!!!!!!!!!!!

[Galaxian]

its not a preventative, its a cure to any harmful changes.
one could run all the paranoia tools they want and still have problems, the difference is with this your a reboot away from it being fixed.

its good for home users only if they choose to move mydoc folder and other commonly altered programs to another partition so they work as normal regardless of rebooting..the idea is to freeze the OS itself, nothing was said about preventing anything

the user is the largest weakness in any computer system

[mjc]

And until you reboot you are passing it on...

No, what is good for computers is for the mass-market, bean counting weenies to start a real user education program instead of pushing push button virus factories.

[Galaxian]

why not work on solutions and help instead of critisize?

most people who use pc's dont care...they just want it to work and DF is at least an offered solution to making sure their pc "just works"

if i happen to "pass something on" then thats someone elses problem, i have enough problems with my own pc and i dont doubt i speak for many.

[Budfred]

why not work on solutions and help instead of critisize?

most people who use pc's dont care...they just want it to work and DF is at least an offered solution to making sure their pc "just works"

if i happen to "pass something on" then thats someone elses problem, i have enough problems with my own pc and i dont doubt i speak for many.
That is a nice egocentric way of looking at things... You are not offering a solution... You are offering a way to provide a false sense of security... As was said earlier, you are vulnerable until you reboot and your personal info can be stolen during that time... The thief doesn't need to maintain contact with your computer to clean out all of your accounts in the meanwhile...

Also, if you don't care about your computer spreading filth around the internet and infecting others, you are part of the problem... If we could shut down or clean all the infected systems out there for even a few hours, it would take a long time for the criminals to reestablish their base and SPAM, infect and rob the world the way they are doing now...

As for criticism, mjc has a lot more credibility that someone who is not known here and doesn't appear to really understand the product he/she is promoting... I suggest you think twice before criticizing mjc's comments...

[mjc]

if i happen to "pass something on" then thats someone elses problem, i have enough problems with my own pc and i dont doubt i speak for many.

Umm....right.

Maybe, that is why malware is the number one computer problem...or is that user error?

The intention of something like DeepFreeze has always been to provide an easily restorable, uniform system for use in environments where such a thing is desired. It was never intended to be a 'security' solution. That shouldn't be too hard a concept to grasp.

Oh, by the way, there are a number of malware infectors that will, when prevented from installling to their default locations, seek out alternate locations. Some of them leaving 'stubs' in certain folders, including MyDocs. Which can lead to an immediate reinfection..especially those that happen to infect common Office file formats (think macro viruses).

Without an AV, one would NEVER even know, unless one sends an infected file by email and happens to have it bounced with a return receipt.

As something to keep your little brother from screwing with you machine..DeepFreeze is fine. As a security solution...I repeat...it is not worth it.

[neilmyers]

Deep freeze is not even close to the type of security problem you are making it out to be.

I am responsible for about 200 machines at a state college. all of them are running DeepFreeze 6. Without Deepfreeze, i would have to lock these machines down so tight to prevent the students from installing IM software, storing their assignments on the local drives, and our department would have to hire a person whose only job duty would be to uninstall IE toolbars. I simply could not manage as many machines as I do without it.

When setup in its basic form it can be a virus respository but when setup properly, It can actually keep a computer lab safer than even an AD+WSUS situation. one feature Deepfreeze has that you may not be aware of is it has the capability to "thaw" itself in a locked state on a specific schedule and run windows update (or any .bat file you specify -works great for updating non MS software) -still trying to get mcaffe to run its definition updates reliably while the pc is in thawed mode for maintenance (they still get updated but the get updated at every boot :( )

All of my machines are configured to reboot in a thawed locked state every thursday morning at 1:00AM and they stay in that state until 5:00AM (a couple hundred machines downloading the same file from the same ip dont get good tsf rates) at 5:00AM thursday morning, they reboot frozen and are ready to se and up to date. I can of course update them and run WU at any other time but so far i havnt had to.

still an infected machine can still cause damage until the infected machine is rebooted but we have an ASA in place that prevents most of these machines from catching anything from its brothers or the outside world. The ASA also lets us know if it sees anything wrong and if it does see something wrong with one of my frozen machines, all i have to do is send it a reboot command, schedule it for updates that night and viola! problem solved with alomost no downtime. -without deepfreeze, i would have to call someone geographically close to that machine, have them shut it down, put a an out of order sign on it, trust that everyone would read said sign, travel out to the machine, fix the problem & patch the hole.

I Agree that for the scenario Galaxian is using it in, its complete overkill, and probably will create more headaches than it will fix in the long run. if you are infected by malware and viruses on your home PC on such a regular basis that you need a total OS recovery solution like DF, I would recommend swicthing to firefox for starters, then if infections still occur, you may need a Macintosh for your naughty websites special needs.

this post is not meant to slight anyone, just to clear the air and hopefully inform anyone reading up on deepfreeze that it is not as much of a security when implemented properly.

[mjc]

I've been trying to use a 'worst case' type approach...treating DF about the same as most people try AV/anitmalware apps.

For a lab, DF is worth it, but most home users aren't going to have the extra protections in place your lab does, so the chances of spreading crap do increase...until a reboot. And if the user of DF is not running any kind of protection, because 'DF locks everything down' then the chances of picking up something also increase.