McAfee Privacy Service - worth £19.95 or not

Huggins

The free trial of privacy service (keep all personal dets safe on your computer - allegedly!) has just expired and they want £19.95 to re-new for 1 year. Is this worth it? is it any good ? i have my doubts as have just removed various virus's from my computer despite it being 'protected' by the McAfee virus scan and firewall that cost me £25 for the year.

Virus's were found by search and destroy a free prog!

Thanks Huggins

solarstone

I would say not. Security is best when using a "layered" approach :

Access Lists on your router
Anti Virus
Personal Firewall
Spyware tools
Setting wireless security away from the defaults
etc

If you have all these configured correctly then you're gradually limiting who can access your machine maliciously by putting as many things in their way as poss.
There are plenty of freebie progs that will give adequate security.

Huggins

Many thanks . any recommnedations for any for the above on your list?

wolfman

A decent router will solve most problems and should hide you from the rest of the internet. It'll cost anywhere from £40-100 but is well worth it. The Netgear DG834 is a good example at about £55. Or a Draytek Vigor 2600 can be found on eBay for about £60.

All you need then is a few light apps as additional protection.

Firewall - Not entirely needed due to the router, but safe to have. I'd go with Kerio Personal Firewall, I prefer it to ZoneAlarm, both are free.
Anti-Spyware - Adaware (which is free) although I prefer Pest Patrol as I find it more effective and it has real time scanning. It costs about £20.
Browser - Mozilla Firefox, fast, safe and secure.

There's also an application called PeerGuardian. It'll block specific ip addresses that are known to be bad. Again though this probably isn't needed if you have a decent router.

Huggins

top man wolfman I will look into a router.

solarstone

Sound advice Wolfman. I use a Vigor 2900, and have had no probs with it.

Also good:

Anti-Spyware - Spybot is also very good
Browser - Maxthon is cool and free (or you can give a donation) http://www.maxthon.com
Anti V - http://www.grisoft.com/ for AVG which is free