Should I get a second laptop

kop77

I have a decent enough 5 year laptop thats used for everything like banking online, Paypal, Ebay etc etc but its also used by the kids for online gaming and I use it for streaming football & movies.

Might be a stupid Idea but I was thinking of getting a second laptop and using it only for banking online, Paypal etc because I'm worried about contracting malware/spyware from the gaming/streaming sites on the old laptop,

I have Avast antivirus & Malwarebytes which I run regulary, I have picked up the odd malware over the years and as far as I can tell the laptop is clean but to give you an example of why I'm worried......

A couple of months ago while watching a match online it was as if someone had logged into my laptop, the cursor moved to the start menu, they clicked Run and they tried typing in something but I pulled out the dongle and that was that! I ran Malwarebytes, found something & removed it,

am I overreacting and Avast & Malwarebytes are good enough to keep things safe or should I get a second laptop as soon as!

thanks....

FSL

Yes I think it is a good idea. If you are only going to use it for banking, paypal and online shopping then you will just be using a browser.

Any basic laptop would be fine. Even a second hand one, just install a lightweight Linux distribution, using the whole drive reformatted. Firefox with Noscript, Ghostery and a cookie control will keep you safe and avoid tracking, annoying advertisements etc.

You will need to allow scripts and cookies for your banking sites and any third party card processors. Also when purchasing online shopping carts use cookies and scripts.

Anti virus does not keep you safe especially from a new virus which may not yet be in the AV database and evades heuristic checking.

bonzodog2

You might consider running some Linux OS from a USB key, assuming your laptop will, and that your bank will play nice with browser available

JonDoe

Have a look at running a "clean" VMware client. VMware player is free for home use I think

kop77

so I've decided to get a new laptop and wipe my old Toshiba A200...

I was thinking of this one, seems cheap for a 17" Toshiba with i5 processor?

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Toshiba_SATELL._PRO_C70-A-159_CI5-3230_PSCE3E-00U01DEN/version.asp

Dariukas

I would consider any of these options as well:

Acer Aspire E1 572-54206G75Dnkk
-Price range is pretty much the same 599
-you get more RAM 6GB
-Newer version of CPU i5-4200. (please see comparison between i5-4200 & i5 3230M
-Display 15.6"

Dell Inspiron 17
-Pretty much the same as the one above, except the screen is 17"

MSI Classic CR61 2M-214NL
-Price 579
-Screen 15.6"
-Ram -> 8GB
-Better processor than the 3 options above

In regards to the quality I'm not sure.... Other people might know more...

I'm stuck my self looking for a new laptop and can't decide (but I'm looking for the high performance one)


Hope this helps a bit...

intellectual dosser

Would you consider buying a new one for the gaming and retaining the older one for the online banking? Then again if it's going to be exposed to malware maybe it could end up being a waste.

Just a thought, I'm sure the kids could reap benefits of the newer technology?

mcw92

If your only going using it for banking online, Paypal , etc. you could go with a chromebook?
They are much cheaper, and are basically just running chrome as the OS.
It would cover all your browsing needs, and there and loads apps on the Chrome Store such as games, photo apps, etc.

kop77

So just to re-cap.... I ordered a new laptop which is on the way, it will be used for banking online, Paypal etc etc,

I'm currently backing up stuff from my old laptop to an external hard drive.... it will be wiped with Windows reloaded and then used for gaming and streaming etc

all good so far...

now I'm not up to date on IP addresses etc but should I get mine changed?

I'm currently with Three broadband using a dongle plugged into a TP-Link wireless router,

each device that accesses my Wifi has its own IP address but the only difference between them is the very last digit, I'm guessing it goes up a digit in order of when each device was originally logged in.....

the reason I ask is that I'm paranoid.... if I get a new laptop, log into the WiFi its going to be very easy to guess the new IP address and my efforts will be pointless,??

again, I don't know much about this whole thing but I want to get it right from the start so if anyone can help it would be great,

thanks

eoin91

The first thing you need to know is that you have two separate IP addresses. The IP address you are talking about is your internal IP address, the IP address on your home network. Your right in saying this is the exact same except for the last digit on all your devices and it just increments when a new device is attached to your local network.

After this though is your external IP address, this is the IP address that other computer networks and servers around the world use to connect to your computers and transmit data using. As an example of this if you go to any find my IP website you will be get back the same IP address on all the computers on your home network.

So in short your internal IP addresses do not matter to the outside world, websites and servers can only see your external IP address. The external IP address is configured by your ISP and router and unless you have a business account with a static IP address then usually unplugging your router will give you a new external IP address so if you wanted you could just unplug that every once and a while to reset it (does anyone do this?), if you really want to be paranoid but I doubt anyone is going to be hacking your home network.

kop77

Thanks Eoin, peace of mind and all that...

the reason I was worried was as that late last year I thought someone had accessed my laptop, as I was saying in an earlier post while streaming a match online my cursor moved to the start menu, they clicked Run and they tried typing in something but I pulled out the dongle in time!

I ran Malwarebytes, found something & removed it but I couldn't be sure when my laptop had contracted it....

thanks again,

eoin91

kop77 wrote: »

Thanks Eoin, peace of mind and all that...

the reason I was worried was as that late last year I thought someone had accessed my laptop, as I was saying in an earlier post while streaming a match online my cursor moved to the start menu, they clicked Run and they tried typing in something but I pulled out the dongle in time!

I ran Malwarebytes, found something & removed it but I couldn't be sure when my laptop had contracted it....

thanks again,

Ah no problem

Yeah if there was a piece of malware on the laptop, however it got there, that piece of malware would basically remote back to its home server say here is a PC (your laptop in this case) you can remote login and attack. So resetting your IP address wouldn't have stopped this as since the malware is sitting on your computer it would just have used the new IP instead So avoid the malware (your children using a different laptop will definitely achieve this from my experience) and you'll be fine

kop77

just been looking up guides on how wipe the hard drive on my old Toshiba laptop and I came across some guides on how to re-set it to factory settings.... I'm wondering if this would be a better option for me seeing that I can't find any of the old discs...

it pretty simple, press zero on the keyboard while powering up the laptop and it lets you into a kind of recovery mode and you can then re-set to factory settings or "out of box state"

there is also the option to erase the hard disk while in there!!!