Warning: This is a pretty long rant.

I’m so fed up with the state of PC security (and PC software) these days… for so many different reasons. But let me back up a little bit and provide some context to this rant. Although my general feelings about PC security range from begrudging resignation to a slow boil of resentment, it all came to a head with my recent purchase of a new HP OfficeJet Pro 7680 All-In-One printer. While I loved my old HP OfficeJet G85, I had kind of outgrown it. The OfficeJet Pro 7680 offered me everything I wanted in an all-in-one (except ink tanks that never run out). It’s a gorgeous printer — fast, networkable, cross-platform, and it prints and scans duplex.

So what does this new printer have to do with PC Security? Well, everything. Call it a convergence of crappy software. Crappy OS, crappy printer software, crappy security software. I guess I’ve been riding a very fine balance with my PC up until this point, and switching printers upset everything. And don’t worry if you can’t figure out yet how this all ties back to security software (and ultimately Windows itself). It will become more clear as you read on.

The first target of my ire is HP. And I have been a faithful HP customer for many, many years. This printer is my third HP All-In-One. My complaint isn’t with the hardware, which I really think is pretty decent. The problem is with the software. It should not take 45 freaking minutes to install the new printer software. Yes, the new printer has many more features that it’s brethren, but I am convinced that the bloated software that came with it is not only unnecessary, but downright evil. Look, HP, I don’t need pictures of shiny happy people peppered throughout the GUI of your printer software. I also don’t need the software to tell me where to go to by replacement ink tanks and online photo services. Just K.I.S.S. me — aka Keep it Simple, Stupid. This may be a sophisticated printer that can do everything but wash my dishes, but surely you can make software that isn’t the digital equivalent of Jenga. Quite frankly, I preferred the software that used with my OfficeJet G85. It was kind of hokey looking, but it did everything quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

I just want to print, scan, copy and fax. Without gobbling up all the CPU cycles on my 2GB Pentium-D processor. Which, coincidentally, is sitting inside my HP Pavilion Media Center m7250n PC. Oh, lest I forget, my HP PhotoSmart 385 does the equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death every few minutes since I’ve loaded the new software that came with the OfficeJet Pro. It’s more like a burnt orange screen of death on the little LCD on the photo printer — it displays an error message then reboots itself every few minutes. For now, I’m keeping its USB cable disconnected until I need to print photos with it. Fortunately, it still prints between random reboots.

Let me bring this back to security software. Because I wanted to use my new printer on my home network, I knew this would be a slightly more complicated setup than a direct USB connection. But I’ve installed other network capable HPs before, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. But after wrestling with the software installation, which seemed to take forever, my PC just came to a grinding halt. My CPU utilization shot up and stayed near 100%, which is not a good thing for PC performance. Even simple things like system beeps were stuttering, and forget about playing anything back in iTunes or recorded video in the XP Media Center interface. It reminded me of those scenes from the Matrix movies, where the various characters would digitally “shiver” whenever something in the matrix was disturbed.

Now began the detective work.

A quick check of the task manager showed me why. A process called VSMON.EXE had gone ballistic. VSMON.EXE is a key component of my ZoneAlarm Pro 7.0 firewall software. Up until this point, I’ve been very happy with ZA Pro. I update it regularly, and when they made v7.0 available, I installed it seemingly with no problems. I use it in conjunction with avast! free anti-virus. I know there are probably better AV programs out there, but it seems to be doing just fine. To troubleshoot further, I backed up my ZA Pro settings, then I did a clean un-install and brought my PC back up. CPU utilization was back down where it should be. But I’m not exactly excited about running with just XP SP2 firewall. It’s just too risky.

Just for yucks, I reloaded ZA Pro again, to see how things would run. Overall, things ran slightly better, and CPU utilization wasn’t quite as bad, but I could still tell the PC was being taxed more than I think it should be. As best I could tell, it’s bad interaction with the new HP All-In-One software and Zone Alarm Pro. As an experiment, I may uninstall ZA Pro again, uninstall avast! and try my hand with Kaspersky Internet Security. I’ve read pretty good things about it. Of course, I know there is a school of thought out there that says to avoid using “suite” based software. And for the most part, I agree. I’ve had nothing but bad run-ins with various version of Internet Security Suites from the “Big 3″ in consumer PC protection: Symantec, Trend Micro and McAfee. I’ve had good luck using my “a la carte” security approach, up until now. If Kaspersky Internet Security doesn’t work they way I want it, I may still try using individual tools.

Which leads me to my next point — that the fact that we need to take such drastic measures to keep our PCs safe is tragic. It goes to show you how flawed mainstream operating systems are. What’s even more tragic is that most of the security solutions that exist penalize us as much as protect us. They drag down a PC’s performance for the sake of safety. I used to think this was an acceptable trade-off. But that when it makes your PC unusable, it’s no longer a compromise, it’s hostage-taking. It’s like when you walk into a mini mart or gas station anywhere near a high-crime area… the clerks are, more often than not, behind thick bulletproof glass with a drawer or revolving cylinder to interact with you. Or having burglar bars on the windows of your home. Either way, it takes away from how things should be.

Perhaps I just need to cook up a new solution for myself, one that will again achieve that fine balance I once had on my PC — security for performance. Ultimately, there is plenty of blame to go around. Microsoft for having such a flawed OS (they aren’t the only ones, but they are the biggest) that it requires so many additional security measures; security vendors for making software that is so hard to use, so complicated, and so performance sapping, all backed by support that is universally horrible (and expensive); and companies like HP that make software so bloated and complicated as to make it almost unusable. End users don’t escape the blame game, either. We can sometimes be our own worst enemy when it comes to security. We just want to buy and install a product that takes care of everything without us having to put forth any effort ourselves.

As to my next security cocktail, I would like to ask the Gnomie community for suggestions. What PC security tools do you utilize and how well do they work for you? Post away in the comments section!

[tags]antivirus, malware, security, computer safety[/tags]