Do I need anything else?

poorbabe

02 is my ISP and I have their McAfee Security Centre on my laptop which includes:

Virusscan
Personal firewall
Anti-spam
Privacy service

Is this enough protection or should I add something else? Before I killed my desktop (I'll post on that another time), I also had cccleaner, spybot search and destroy and Adaware on it, but the guy who'd built my computer thought that was a little excessive.

Any thoughts and suggestions happily received.

Airwolf1

Ccleaner is good to run at times, as it gets rid of your temporary internet files etc. I would look at downloading some anti-spyware if not included in the package you mention.

totalsolutions

All you need is a nat router and some common sense, thats all. Note: all routers are nat routers, the rest is overkill as your pc guy said.

poorbabe

Hmm. I have a router which my laptop is 'wired' to. The security settings have been set and I'll run cccleaner occasionally.

Total, I don't always use my commonsense where computers are concerned but I'm turning over a new leaf, finally.

aliEnRIK

"I also had cccleaner, spybot search and destroy and Adaware on it, but the guy who'd built my computer thought that was a little excessive."

I wouldnt agree with that. CCleaner is good to keep the computer nice and clean. SPYBOT stops certain 'popups' etc when using the IMMUNISE feature. And theres certainly no harm in using both of the scanners either. Plus none of the programs run in 'real time' so dont use any resources.

poorbabe

Oh well. The security centre developed problems and reinstalling it, seeking advice from the helpdesk didn't help so I've removed it from the laptop and installed Comodo, Spywaredoctor and AVG antivirus. I'm also using CC cleaner too.

That will have to do for the time being. I'll see what I can do re the desktop over the weekend.

d900

u can go over board
education is the best thing

i have run my pc with just a hard ware router / nat firewall and some basic virus protection for the last 9 years without anything nasty coming my way except a link to a msn virus that i didnt click on but had to fix for friends that did..

learn what safe using lots of programs like that will just slow ur pc down - honestly they do

Reluctant_spender

Have you removed McAffe - sometimes bits of it can hang around - have a look at this, there is a tool listed that cleans up the leftovers. Scroll down to step 1

http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=107083&lc=1033

poorbabe

To date:

I had to reinstall XP on the laptop as I messed up. Fortunately there was nothing on the hard drive to miss as everything of value is still on my external hard drive.

I have to say the laptop now loads pages a tad quicker since the reinstall. Hopefully it will do even better once I install the extra RAM when that finally arrives.

I've also reinstalled McAfee Security Centre, having uninstalled it completely. No problems this time :T I'm also going to install cc cleaner and that's it. Possibly..........:D

aliEnRIK

If you want my advice babe ~ get RID of Mcafee. Its awful.......

Pssst

You can go too far. Virus scanners and security products are often sticking plasters on something that has happened or is imminent. I only have a nat router and free avast av on my lappy. Never had a problem. Best thing you can do is set up different accounts for every user and make only one of them (you?) admin.