Ubuntu and PCLinux worked fine but I found the install options too risky. My attempt to customize my Ubuntu LiveCD wasn’t successful (I am still trying).

Knoppix is good LiveCD but it wasn’t as well suited for Internet Banking as webconverger.

I had no trouble going to my Internet Banking sites. I love that Flash is preloaded. It is so easy to use that my Mom could use it. To shut off Webconverger, I just had to press the power button. I love the fact that there is no way that a user could inadvertantly install Linux on their hard drive (Ubuntu, PCLinux and others with “install” options).

I will try the other features that you mentioned this weekend: pdf viewer; shortcut keys: CTRL-+ and CTRL– for controlling the font size, CTRL-T and CTRL-W for creating and closing tabs, and CTRL-K to get to the search form, and CTRL-L for moving to the address bar.

You can also get Puppy Linux variations (“puplets”) with programs such as OpenOffice which has an XLS-compatible spreadsheet program.

(Note: On an older computer (especially Compaqs) you may get bad video after boot using Xorg video. Simply reboot and choose Vesa video.)

For the Mozilla-based browser:

Open /etc/fstab with a text editor and add these lines at the bottom:
# Set 256MB RAM drive for tmp
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs size=256M,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

In your Mozilla-based browser’s address bar, type in:
about:config
Right-click in the main window and choose Add, String.
Type in: browser.cache.disk.parent_directory
For the value enter: /tmp/ff_cache

Then, in Tools, Options, Network, set the browser to use a proxy (of 0.0.0.0) for all protocols, and add in exceptions for your bank’s site(s). Close your browser.

Now open a terminal and ping your bank’s sites, including all of the sites used when you login/work with your account. Then edit your /etc/hosts file to include all of these IP addresses and URIs, each on a separate line. (if the bank changes it’s IP addresses later on, you will have to re-do this portion.)

Then save that whole thing to an ISO file on the hard drive, USB, whatever by using the System, Remaster Puppy live-cd menu choice.

Reboot Puppy Linux and make sure you save your personalized file to hard drive/USB/whatever.

After reboot, open Multimedia, ISOMaster, open the ISO file and copy the /mnt/home/pupsave.* file into the ISO file.

Burn that Puppy (no pun intended…) to CD, remove all drives on the computer other than the CD drive and Viola! You’ll be about as secure as you can get.

It will run on any computer you can throw at it with 512MB of RAM or more, and will be freaking fast.

The one limitation of Puppy for this purpose is that it does not come with Firefox (though there are derivatives of Puppy that do). It comes with Mozilla Seamonkey, which is a community-supported continuation of the former Mozilla Suite. I will say that I can log into my bank’s online banking with it with no problem. In addition, there *are* install files available for installing Firefox, Opera and some other browsers. Puppy can create a file on your hard drive for storing settings, installed programs and such so you don’t have to wait for it to redetect hardware every time. And of course, you still get the greatly enhanced security (built-in from the ground up) of the Linux operating system.

There is an existing resource that is constantly updated
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=cd

Dsl seems to have stalled a little but TinyCore is developing fast and seems designed for this type of use.

Ubuntu would seem an obvious choice given that familiarity of interface is a stated goal. The FireFox icon is easy to spot. Lots of magazines give hints&tips about Ubuntu often alongside their Windows articles. Ubuntu does have a lot of extras you probably don’t need just to login to your bank, such as being able to easily open Office documents and email but these give more reason to use the Live Cd (or a full dual-boot install alongside Windows) & hence gain more familiarity with it.

Knoppix is excellent at hardware detection so it handles a huge variety of different setups and can run on fairly old machines. It’s quite pretty to watch while its booting up. Wolvix is possibly an easier off-shoot of Slax & has a gui rather than command-line (so does Slax now), again it has excellent hardware detection, not quite as good as Knoppix tho. For really ancient machines such as PII there is always Puppy.

For screenshots and details …
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=puppy
or just try the main page at DistroWatch and navigate from there
http://distrowatch.com

Ubuntu and knoppix are safer and of course all boot-times have dropped drastically even in the last 6months

Good luck and regards from
Tom

I have used Slax and BartPE with Firefox.

Thanks

@mackney

Thanks for the comment. Using a Boot CD protects you from some forms of attacks (i.e., malware on your computer), but it does not provide 100% protection. Attacks that take place during the authentication and transactions with the bank, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, are still possible. Attacks based on DNS poisoning, where you end up at a false bank site, are still possible. And, if the Boot CD was built with faulty software, then there could be problems.

So, the protection is not 100% fool-proof, but it is still much better than using a normal, possibly-infected PC.

Now my question is.. if all your doing is visiting a bank site, and with no where to store a virus.. is there any way someone could hack into your system?