Hi,

Forgive me if this has been asked before. I have been persuing the unofficial win 98 service pack forums for several months, but haven't seen much/enough on this.

How secure is win 98 SE with unofficial service pack 2.01 compared to newer windows (2000 SP4, XP SP2)?

I have read in some security websites that win 9x series OSes cannot be made secure (!). That seems a bit black & white to me.

I plan to use litePC's 98 lite as well + MDGX 98SE2ME +/- 98 revolutions. How do these affect security? I think they add all "latest" patches, but even with all these patches, is a suitably modded win 98 SE SP2 set-up safe enough to use for things like internet shopping? Or will it be trojan/worm/malware fodder?

I will use firewall/antivirus/anti-spyware/anti-trojan as well (of course).

Thanks for any help/advice.

Wild Weasel
(Yet another Newbie)

the truth is it's relative, in a corporate enviroment 98se isn't considered secure.

if your pc is always on and connected to the net, then it's probably not secure
(although you can greatly help things with the likes of a hardware firewall and other things so i'm led to believe)

but, if you use a modem, have a good firewall/antivirus/anti-spyware/anti-trojan and switch your PC off when not using it (to help the enviroment or your electricity bill ) then it's probably as secure as you need it to be.

trojan/worm fodder ? well that really depends on what your doing with it, i never use file sharing programs or download things (including e-mail attachments) the origin of which i'm not 100% sure about, i've had one virus problem since 98se came out, and afaik i've never been hacked.

think of it this way, we could all drive around in armoured cars, but we don't.

PS. install 98lite once (even if you have no intention of using it) use it to extract the 98setup files to a folder on your hard disk, preferably a different partition (in my case the folder is only 121mb) format C (or whatever) and install 98se from this folder, the advantage ? well apart from a really speedy install 98lite fixes the standard installer so you can install 98se as normal but with the option to not install Outlook Express thereby getting rid of a big problem right there. this has nothing to do with doing a '98lite install' and is actually a bug fix to an option MS was ment to include. if you use web based e-mail (hotmail, gmail, etc) you won't even notice it's gone.

PSS. a good hosts file and Firefox helps strip spyware problems to a minimum.
if you use spybot switch to advanced and use the Hosts File option, or use a tool like HostsMan.

Thanks Miko.

I will use firefox & K-meleon browsers (using firefox now).

Thanks for advice on 98lite.

My PC is not permanently connected to the net.

Cheers

Have a read at this : Hacking Windows 95/98 and Me. It is very good.

Wild Weasel....

Executive Summary
Win98SE (even with SP2) will never be "secure" in the eyes of business, but is secure enough for home use.

To secure your box take the following 4 steps:
1. Apply WinSE98 SP2.x
2. If using BroadBand, get a Router that does NAT (iow has DHCP)
3. Install a good virus scanner with SpyWare detection AND removal
4. Use FireFox instead of IE

Technical Explanation
The main reason 9x will never be secure in a business scenario is because there is no permissions or ownership on file on a Win9x box.

So if 2 people can login to the same box, there's no easy way for you to protect me from reading/rewriting your files. The file system with this kind of security is NTFS, used in NT3,NT4,Win2000,WinXP,Win2003,etc). DOS, Windows 95/98/ME all used a file system known as FAT. Both FAT and NTFS have had improvements over time, but FAT will never support proper file permissions and ownership.

There are tons of other reasons why the 9x kernel (core) is not reliable or secure because of weak memory protection, instability (one sloppy app can crash the whole machine) and 98's inability to clean up memory properly, but that's a whole other rant in itself.

I'd also like to point out, an out of the box Win98SE installation with all public Windows Updates applied is NOT secure, IMHO you have to apply this Win98SE SP2 in order before I'd begin to call the box secure for home use.

Obviously you should still run a decent virus scanner (Panda Antivirus is the best but the best comes with a catch, 30+megs of ram) and if your virus scanner doesn't protect from AND remove spyware (many AV apps can't do either) then you need some spyware protection. If you don't want to buy a AV, then Avast Free Antivirus is good (for being free).

Finally you should use some kind of DHCP router (aka NAT). You can get a LinkSys router for $20-$40 and it will give you all the protection you need. Please note most people confuse a firewall with a DHCP router, which is all you need as it protects you from outsiders. Please note a DHCP router does not protect you from naughty programs on your PC going out onto the Internet but this is why you need a good AntiVirus program.

Since we're talking about 98 where new updates/fixes won't be coming out directly from Microsoft, you're better off using FireFox as you are very unlikely to get SpyWare. While IE6 on XP SP2 stopped most spyware and IE7 will put an end to spyware (as it's made today), neither of these versions of IE will work on 98, so FireFox is the only secure route you have now.

Tweak to (greatly) increase local security of a 9x box :

Prevent Windows 98 users from bypassing the logon screen

I feel safe with w98se SP2. I'm a normal internet home user and never got a virus.
I run frequently antiVir and one or two wellknown anti-spyware and they rarely find anything serious.

The good thing about w98 is that a virus designed to work on XP may not work on your machine.

For home use, I fully agree, assuming one has taken the 4 suggestions I've listed above.

Let's be fair now, I mean 2000/XP is more virus proof than Win9x/ME (thanks to both file permissions, running as a power user and NTFS in general).

Win98's FAT32 protected users from the horrible FAT table corruption of DOS's and Win95's FAT16. I believe it was the first attempt from MS to cripple viruses an a mass scale and it worked REALLY well. A virus on Win98 virus can cause far more damage that a virus on XP, especially if your XP account is NOT running as admin.

Now I'm going to cross my fingers and hope the trolls don't turn this into another 98 vs XP thread.

Thanks Rhelic and all others for your helpful suggestions!

As I mentioned, I will use firefox - its my default browser now

I have been considering getting a hardware firewall, but I will probably use a software firewall for now (+ antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-trojan).

Yes, I hope this doesn't turn into a Win 9x vs. XP flame-war too! I am not asking which is better - I want to try out win 98SE + unofficial SP2 + MDGX's tweaks + 98lite.
I am using XP SP2 now & want to go retro for a bit.