[NA] Surface Pro Question

[TCABM]

Time to replace our 2008 Toshiba laptop. It’s the only PC in our house. One of us wants the ability to read their DoD CAC for email and portal access at home. We’re leaning heavy towards the Surface Pro and was curious what people are doing for AV/anti-malware?

Google may have been helpful, but it seemed most of the articles were a few years old.


Thanks.

 

[falconkidding]

Just use windows defender. No need to run 3rd party anti virus.
Malware on windows is 99.9% of the time user error.

 

[denverpilot]

Doesn’t matter much. Whatever DoD will allow.

All had zero day exploits against them this year, and last, and the year before that...

And the consumer grade OSs and browsers nothing but zero day holes.

I’m amazed FedRamp hasn’t started demoting DoD facilities that don’t require 100% always on VPN Pre-login like many finance institutions are headed toward now along with centrally controlled AV/malware/phishing and locked down and centrally controlled browsers only on gov-owned hardware.

Even at unclassified levels.

As far as the hardware goes we’ve seen people have trouble with multiple monitor setups on Surface devices but it’s getting better. Earlier stuff was close to unusable. Get the best graphics card built in that you can afford. The machines were okay speed wise and okay RAM wise but GPU was lacking for power users who could talk the bosses into their price tags.

 

[Heftiger]

Not sure about the pro, but the 3 we had only had 1 USB port. If you’re using it for the CAC card reader, then you’ve got 0 remaining. Kind of a pain

 

[TCABM]

Not sure about the pro, but the 3 we had only had 1 USB port. If you’re using it for the CAC card reader, then you’ve got 0 remaining. Kind of a pain

The pro 7 is expandable via USB-C to a docking station, which is the only time she'd ever be logging in to OWA.

 

[kep5niner]

If you’re mil, all that antivirus is made available for home use at no cost. I’ve taken advantage of that for all of my machines for over a decade. Also, google Microsoft Home Use Program. Get the entire MS Office Professional suite for about $20 (for military).

 

[TCABM]

If you’re mil, all that antivirus is made available for home use at no cost. I’ve taken advantage of that for all of my machines for over a decade. Also, google Microsoft Home Use Program. Get the entire MS Office Professional suite for about $20 (for military).

I’m retired AF and she’s a DoD civilian, so we take advantage of those opportunities when we can/need to.

Just didn’t know if there’s a particular product that’s more suited than another. Seems like we will continue with that practice.

 

[jsstevens]

I’m retired AF and she’s a DoD civilian, so we take advantage of those opportunities when we can/need to.

Just didn’t know if there’s a particular product that’s more suited than another. Seems like we will continue with that practice.

As a contractor we switched to McAfee as the Norton we were using had foreign ownership interests and DoD looked askance at that. Basically (a couple of years ago) McAfee was the only commercial choice for them. He may be a crazy criminal but he’s our crazy criminal. (And I know he’s not been active in the company for several years. Just strikes me funny.)

 

[denverpilot]

As a contractor we switched to McAfee as the Norton we were using had foreign ownership interests and DoD looked askance at that. Basically (a couple of years ago) McAfee was the only commercial choice for them. He may be a crazy criminal but he’s our crazy criminal. (And I know he’s not been active in the company for several years. Just strikes me funny.)

John McAfee hasn’t been involved in that company for decades. But the video explaining that was fun.

And the software ranks as some of the lowest and most useless consistently. I’m amazed DoD says it meets any sort of criteria related to security.

On second thought. No, I’m not. LOL. Warm poo on a stick might fend off attacks more effectively.

 

[flhrci]

John McAfee hasn’t been involved in that company for decades. But the video explaining that was fun.

And the software ranks as some of the lowest and most useless consistently. I’m amazed DoD says it meets any sort of criteria related to security.

On second thought. No, I’m not. LOL. Warm poo on a stick might fend off attacks more effectively.

I am not impressed with the McAfee IDS system I worked with at my internship.

 

[TCABM]

Decision time is coming sooner than expected; tech refresh is moving my work solution from Citrix virtual machine to fully-loaded laptop, so no more ability to use one device for two purposes. For our home solution, form factor is going to be the first decision...desktop/laptop/2-in-1.

Neither of us are gamers or have any specific needs, we just need to be able to access the web, store/access a NAS, and print. Laptop or 2-in-1 is probably the end result, for portability. Has to have USB-C connection.

Time for some thinking. For real, this time.

 

[PaulS]

I have a Surface book 2, spilled coffee on my Surface book 1 and wrecked it. Paid $500 and got a "refurbished" unit, went through 2 of those, with various problems, so I ended up returning that and getting this surface book 2, about a year or so ago. It's been a piece of junk, further compounded by Windows 10 updates, which broke the graphics cards for months before they bandaided together a solution which still crashes. Starting a search for something else because this thing sucks. YMMV.

 

[kayoh190]

If you're replacing a laptop from 2008, you're going to be blown away by the performance of any current premium device. The Surface is as good a choice as any.