What Security do you use?

luv_my_brass

Confess my mind is reeling with all this info! I purchased MacAffee anti virus etc from my isp on a monthly basis and recently installed their firewall as it came free. As Windows SP comes complete with a Microsft firewall, wondering whether or not to turn it off, as it says having two firewalls may cause conflict. Macaffee at least allow you to see what it going on, although whether or not being able to trace where the signals of those trying to access one's pc is of practical use, I'm not sure :-/ But one can report, trace and ban. Trouble is, I got a couple of messages saying that my computer had been unable to do a 'search & destroy' scan on a trojan carrier as my firewall was preventing it =:-O

I do so agree about not letting one's email addy show online, I do try to remember to use one of my usernames, unfortunately, my isp uses shortened versions of our names for our main email address and this cannot be changed unless I change isps - which is on the cards!

codger

brass:

Two firewalls may conflict, so it might be best to turn one or t'other off.

I'm running Windows XP SP2 and the Windows firewall is turned off: I prefer to stick with ZoneAlarm Free.

As to ongoing protection, everyone (as you've seen from this thread!) has different preferences. I can only speak for the set-up on my own PC and laptop, viz:

1. ZoneAlarm Free: firewall

2. AVG Free: antivirus

3. Spyware Blaster Free: spyware 'live' monitor

4. a-Squared Free: spyware seek 'n destroy

5. AdAware Personal Free: adware / spyware seek


ZA updates as-and-when.

The wonderful (in my experience) AVG updates automatically whenever I'm on line.

Spyware Blaster: requires manual updating, so needs checking once a week. (NB: this isn't an after-the-fact seek 'n destroy application, by the way, rather one that constantly monitors the computer when its on the 'Net for signs of harmful incursions and flags them up.)

a-Squared Free: quite outstanding (again, in my personal experience). Needs manual update twice a week or so. (The developers' website is also one of the most informative on the 'Net.)

AdAware SE: again, update once or twice a week. Both AdAware and a-Squared do a similar job. It's been my experience that what one misses, the other picks up (and vice versa). Importantly, their installations don't clash on your computer.

Total cost of above defence: nowt.

I have made PayPal donations though to some of the developers or paid for 'automatic' updating with SpyWare Blaster -- no payments are mandatory, but a little help to the little guys goes a long way.

None of the above is to say that you're wasting your money paying for McAffee or any other commercial software. It's your choice.

But I can say, as one of the many, many victims of Norton a few years ago, and an antivirus app that well-nigh totally destroyed my hard drive, I've stayed well clear of paid-for software ever since.

Anyway. If you're migrating from your ISP, you may like to consider the above free options. All of them have massive worldwide user bases; to locate 'em, just Google.

In my own experience, I've not found any of them to be resource hoggers. They all perform as expected and don't conflict. And (touch wood) though I use the Net a lot, I've never suffered from virus, trojan, wotevers infections, largely -- though perhaps not solely -- because of the above array of free software. (I do use ancillary software as well, including LinkScanner and SpoofStick; but there are plenty of alternatives to those available.)

Hope this helps!

Codger

codger

. . . and yet more reasons for thinking twice about signing up with your credit card to paid-for commercial software:

http://www.windowssecrets.com/comp/070517/#story1



codger

superscaper

codger wrote: »

None of the above is to say that you're wasting your money paying for McAffee or any other commercial software. It's your choice.

From my own experience I disagree, I get McAfee for free and even then I still find it's worth ditching in favour of something like AVG or Avast. Currently I'm trying out NOD32. If you're going to pay for AV software then I think only NOD32 and Kaspersky are in the running. Anything else is beaten by the free alternatives.

codger

I agree with you. But my decision is based on my experience, as yours is.

As there are (presumably) going to be other posters who swear by the commercial software they're using (rather than swear at, as was my experience) then I was trying to avoid being too dogmatic.

mushypeaman

Three years ago my PC was taken over by the dreaded Coolwebsearch trojan, and rendered virtually unusable. At that time I knew nothing about security, but I learned very fast. I now have the following - all free.

Spybot Search & Destroy
Adaware
The above two are malware scanners, but Spybot offers other facilities such as file shredding, stopping prorammes loading at startup and more.

SpywareGuard
Spywareblaster
The above two are to stop malware getting through in the first place, and SG is great in that it alerts if anyone (like Microsoft for instance) tries to change your homepage or install a BHO. Spywareblaster also offers some nice little system tweaks.

The latest version of ZoneAlarm Free firewall. There are a lot of complaints about the latest version on the ZA forum, but I personally have not had any problems.
AVG antivirus

Windows firewall is turned off.

Result - haven't had a nasty in over 3 years.

One important thing I've discovered is to turn off AVG when installing things, especially driver installs, or you can have a right mess.

scotsblood

Having been stung by a virus about four years ago I went and paid for Norton as it was receiving good reviews at the time, after the year I dropped it as it seems to enjoy using up every little bit of the pc's resources!

Since then I have used either Steganos (when I've been able to access a free subscription!) or AVG free.

The choices seem to have been vindicated by Computer Shoppers Labs article in the April 07 edition see http://www.compshopper.co.uk

So all in all my used list;-

1. ZoneAlarm firewall

2. AVG antivirus

3. Spyware Blaster spyware monitor

4. AdAware adware/spyware seeker

looks very similar to other setups listed here, has cost nothing (except the odd donation) and has kept me free of any problems since I started using it!

Probably more important however is that I steer well clear of software that has known vulnerabilities ie MS IE, MS Outlook and MS Office!
I use Firefox, Thunderbird and Open Office, all open source, all free!

Now that's money saving!

davidwatts

Time to ditch my free Norton as 90 day trial on new laptop comes to an end, plenty of advice on here as to what to go for but my fundamental question is do I need to uninstall Norton before I install any other software, particularly antivirus? Going for AVG as I've used it before. Just want to know order I need to uninstall/download/install in.

Any help much appreciated.

Art_2

davidwatts wrote: »

Time to ditch my free Norton as 90 day trial on new laptop comes to an end, plenty of advice on here as to what to go for but my fundamental question is do I need to uninstall Norton before I install any other software, particularly antivirus? Going for AVG as I've used it before. Just want to know order I need to uninstall/download/install in.

Any help much appreciated.

Yes, you must uninstall Norton before you install AVG or you will have problems.

Regards,
Art.

davidwatts

Thanks Art, will get it sorted in next couple of days. Nearly succumbed to the temptation to just renew Norton for the convenience, but what sort of moneysaver would that make me!