h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hello people
was wondering if any of you could give me some advice. I'm running panther and looking to get broadband. Was hoping for some advice about security and stuff for the mac when you've got an always on connection like broadband. I know panther has its own built in firewall and stuff and most providers give you a firewall with their product but was just wanting to hear people's thoughts on the best mac friendly provider or if there's any extra security software it's worth getting as well as use of the panther firewall.
cheers
Kaz

One tip that applies to all computers, not just the Mac, is always use a router to connect rather than a modem. A 4-way router can be had for as little as £35, which is only about £5 more than a cheap modem, and even if you only want to connect one machine the router will provide you with "Network Address Translation"; basically a one-way firewall implemented in hardware.

It won't stop programs on your machine from "calling out" - you still need a firewall for that - but it absolutely prevents any machine from "out on the internet" being able to detect the existence of your computer.

Hi kaz

I had the same angst when getting broadband and the best solution for me was a modem/router. I bought the Netgear DG834G, a 4 port and wireless router (http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/GWirelessRouters/DG834G.aspx). It has a built-in firewall which is preconfigured so that you don't need to worry about security. I also found it really simple to set up and maintain. Amazon have the one I bought for £49 (I paid more 18 months ago!!) and there are many others out there.

That's my worth...

turvy

Working version of turvy's link, without the trailing parenthesis...

http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/GWirelessRouters/DG834G.aspx

Oops I usually put a space in the link before the closing bracket. Sorry

turvy

This one looks like a good bet for under £33, if you don't need wireless...

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3NNZ

The router is definitely good advice. As for software, there's no need to install anything extra. The Mac's built-in firewall is the same software that's used on unix servers and the default settings are pretty good. If you really want to mess with the firewall you can download "Flying Buttress" - it just gives you a more sophisticated interface to the firewall software - but you'd better read up on firewalls first.

Really, the key to a secure Mac is to not turn on any of the "Sharing" services unless you really need them. And for extra security, set up an administrator account that you won't normally use, and don't give your normal account administrative access. That way if you download something that does something evil, it can't do anything really bad unless it knows how to log out and back in again with your admin account. That's a bit unlikely.

Thanks guys that's really helped.
Totally unrealated, I know, but I have another reason to love macs today. Bought a griffin imic and guitar cable so I could use my guitar with garageband. Absolutely wicked, no fuss, no installation of drivers, just plug it in, hit a few buttons and off you go. Definetly recommmend one if you're a musicy type person.

What about mac friendly isps? any thoughts? Good customer service etc...?

Ideally you want to find an ISP where nobody knows what the Customer Service is like because they never needed to call it.

If you follow the router advice it becomes a moot point because most ISPs won't give any advice on routers, whether you use a Mac or a PC. Luckily they're a piece of urine* to set up. (Other words are available, E&OE)

I use TalkTalk's "Free" broadband because, well, it's cheap. The package you have to take to get it costs £9.99 a month on top of £10.50 line rental; that equates to my average monthly call costs anyway and all local, national and the majority of international calls are thrown in for free too. They advertise it as "Up to 8Mb/s"; I get 6.5Mb/s. I have no complaints with it. It could take you more than a month to get connected, but TalkTalk aren't alone in this.

(I *do* have complaints with whoever it was that caused me a year's worth of grief by publishing my ex-directory 'phone number and then refusing to fix it, but an adjudication against them by the Telecoms Ombudsman and a hefty compensation payment sorted them out... )

I use what was NDO and is now Namesco and have no complaints about them. They are helpful and prompt when I have had queries and can advise from a Mac perspective. They also presume that if one uses a Mac and a router one is already savvy.

Check these sites if you want to do a bit of research: -

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.shtml
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ - particularly this page http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/broadband.html

Good luck...
turvy

Generally the smaller ISPs are better. The big ones (Orange, the buggers</cough&gt are not so good, especially with customer service. Orange is currently providing my household with Internet access with varies from none to dial-up speed to about a quarter of the line speed we are paying for.

blimey! well, I too have some issues with orange anyway as they used to supply me with a dialup connection, and I had lots of problems.

Thanks, that's all really handy to know-I was thinking about going with Talk Talk, cos like you say it seems the most economical, but I will have to get reconnected to BT-I'm currently with the dreaded virginmedia whose setup isn't exactly that great price wise.

Kaz, here's a top tip... BT's billing system don't seem to be set up to handle "early termination" surcharges if you switch to them and then immediately switch away again within a week. That, at least, was my experience when I switched to BT for something like three days to get my 'phone number changed... When they sent the "final" (only) bill, I queried that they hadn't charged me for early termination of the contract; they told me that if the charge wasn't on that bill it wasn't going to come through, so just don't make a fuss and I'd get away with it.

Sneaky. Well not really I suppose. It's their own fault. Yeah, I rang BT just to see how much they'd charge for recconnection and they said 124 quid. They must be kidding-I don't need a new one installed-I just need my old one reconnected. The person on the end of the phone said that it'd never actually been used, which was a load of rubbish. I had a BT number before I switched-of course it'd been used!

The problem is that Virgin will have bought it off them, which means physically disconnecting the wire from BT's equipment and plugging it into their own, then only /selling/ it back to BT thereafter.

just another thing. If you set up a separate account on your mac for day to day stuff, with no admin priveleges-would you still be able to do a software update? I thought you had to be logged on as admin to make changes to your programs?
That's the first thing I've got on my list to do when I sort broadband out-do a update. It's impossible on dialup cos there's so much to download. And virginmedia cut you off after 15mins if you're online and not doing anthing on the browser-how useless is that! Even if you sneak past the 15min axe they cut you off after an hour. They say it's supposed to be two, but I've been cut off after one.

Hi people

still trying to sort wireless connection for my mac, but I need to fit an airport extreme card first. Looking at the details in my computer manual it should be fairly straightforward-I was going to do it myself, save paying for an engineer. Anyone got any tips? Also still having a nosey about for a router-you said a netgear is a safe bet? So long as they’re the right one for your ISP (virginmedia, DSL in this case-yes, I had to stay put...) there are no massive problems with compatibility-a router’s a router, right? PCS and macs can use the same one?

Cheers

Kaz (hoping to be on hootoo at high speed anytime soon)

I can't help with the Airport card, but I can confirm that any wireless DSL modem/router should be fine with both PC and Mac.

Here's a Belkin for £30 that'll do the trick: http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3K24

What kind of Mac do you have again? Apple's gone through a couple of iterations of the airport card, and if your mac is very old it might not work with the newer cards.

it's an ibook g4 running panther 10.3.1- got it Sept 04 I think
does that help?

I'm just a bit nervous as i'm not in the habit of tinkering with the hardware in a computer! obviously they really recommend you get someone proper to put the card in, but it just seems a ridiculous waste of money on top of the £30 for the card when I could do it myself.
On paper it looks pretty simple-disconnect all power supply to computer, (obviously!) take keyboard out and put the card in the slot. Won't I need one of those protective band thingys that engineers use?
sorry-I'm reasonably savvy with software, but this is new to me!