If not McAfee or Norton, what?

My overall experience is that both McAffee & Norton cause more problems for end users than they solve. What I suggest people do is use the following tools, all of which are free:

Anti virus: http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Internet Explorer infection remover: Ad-Aware (better yet: switch to the FireFox browser)

Anti virus & general system cleanup: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

The last one is not well known for some reason, but has been out there for several months. It's not clear if MS is going to continue making it available for free or not.

These tools have been working well for me for months.

Birk Binnard
http://www.birkbinnard.com/photography

For a firewall you should just purchase a router. This will stop attacks before they get to your computer.

5641jdc50 said:

Ok most everyone has talked about virus, spyware, or firewall I am
wondering if you go with one of the recommended ones what about
Spam in your emails. That is the only reason I am using McAffee
right now.

Jim

Click to expand...

Look at Trend's PC-Cilin Security Suite 2005 It's got just about everything you could want along those lines. It's been pretty well reviewed by the varous PC magazines. And if you shop around, you can find a competitive upgrade price to boot! After years of "me too" obscurity, they seem ready to take on MacAfee and Norton head on.

The only negative for me so far is its incredibly UGLY red colored user interface. Don't get me wrong, it's easy enough to use, and it seems at least as secure as Norton without the overhead/speed issues, it's just incredibly offensive from an aesthetics/design point of view!

As a graphics oriented person, I wonder how much confidence we infer in a security suite from how it looks?
--
Stop the Insanity!
Diet and Exercise Kills!

Birk Binnard said:

Internet Explorer infection remover: Ad-Aware (better yet: switch
to the FireFox browser)

Click to expand...

Even Better yet is use Firefox and KEEP Ad-Aware PLUS use a second anti spy package. I use both and added Spybot as well (also free). Firefox is great and far more secure than IE6, but it isn't perfect and it will probably always have holes that could be exploited. As it becomes more and more popular, it will become more of a target for the b* tards of the world.

Ad-aware and spybot take two different approaches to anti-spyware, and each will catch things the other will miss. They seem to be aware of each other and never seem to step on each other's toes. I've never had a software conflict from them.

--
Stop the Insanity!
Diet and Exercise Kills!

They only stop things from coming IN uninvited, they don't do any sort of analysis of what is going out. nor can they stop spyware and viruses that are invited onto your system (spyware/viruses buried in a download, for example)

If YOU'VE requested a downlad, or if it thinks you've requested it, the router will let you have it regardless of the contents. Most software based firewalls will at least warn you when a program requests internet access, some will even do analysis on the package being sent out.

Routers are a nice security extra, but by themselves, they are not enough in today's world.
--
Stop the Insanity!
Diet and Exercise Kills!

I've been connected to the internet 24/7 for over 12 years with no anti-virus or firewall software of any kind and never had any problem. I do run my computers behind a cable router and I recently began to use Firefox and Thunderbird.

I do all banking, bill paying, purchasing, selling, investing, research, daily business etc on the internet all without problems and all without software protection. The only precaution I take is: never open unsolicited email attachments.

Given a 12 year history of zero problems I regard antivirus/firewall software an unnecessary hassle.

Regards,

Bill Wood
Fountain Hills, AZ

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Disable skinning and you have a capable program with a clean interface
(retain the skins and you have a capable program with a kludgy interface).

Holy snapping ducks* t!!!!! are u serious? I use zone alarm pro, and I was amazed then frightened at how many times my pc was asked to "share" my bank account number and passwords to it, as well as ebay passwords, my social security number..and i never would have known if not for being informed and then it being blocked by the software..I too do all my banking and a lot of my shopping online...who knows how long it had been doing so before that....wow, livin life on the edge fer sure....

I also use the paid AVG program, much much better than Norton or Macafee..I have 1 gig of ram and they both put a hurt on my pc...

http://www.pbase.com/wbrosen/

You'll be sorry

Glen Barrington said:

Birk Binnard said:

Internet Explorer infection remover: Ad-Aware (better yet: switch
to the FireFox browser)

Click to expand...

Even Better yet is use Firefox and KEEP Ad-Aware PLUS use a second
anti spy package. I use both and added Spybot as well (also free).
Firefox is great and far more secure than IE6, but it isn't perfect
and it will probably always have holes that could be exploited. As
it becomes more and more popular, it will become more of a target
for the b* tards of the world.

Ad-aware and spybot take two different approaches to anti-spyware,
and each will catch things the other will miss. They seem to be
aware of each other and never seem to step on each other's toes.
I've never had a software conflict from them.

Click to expand...

That's my method, too; Firefox, (although there's two serious holes in it now: http://secunia.com/advisories/15292/ but if you do as advised behind that link you're quite safe), AdAware & Spybot.
--
Jorma
You'll never get out of this life alive.

http://www.pbase.com/viljamix/

The beautiful part of modern malware is they don't have to even let you know they exist! They can quietly go about their business with you never being the wiser. Do you turn your PC off when not inuse? if not, your PC could be hijacked in the midle of the night and used to email spam while you sleep. I'm no expert, but I have read that the newest malware can emulate a requested download and thus fool your router into passing the malware on to your HD.

True, if you go to only a few restricted high security sites, your low profile may keep you safe for a while, but it's just a matter of time before you will get hit big time. You've had 12 good years when malware was relatively simple and unsophiticated. You are about to find yourself in a confusing and hostile future, I'm afraid.

--
Stop the Insanity!
Diet and Exercise Kills!

My company has just started to use Nod32 antivirus and it has already found 18 infections that norton and AVG failed to find.
We also use Kerio firewall whcih seems to do the trick
If you go to this site

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

it tests your ports and tells you how secure your pc is

dave.

--
Gallery @
http://davepearce.smugmug.com

Bill Brosen said:

Holy snapping ducks* t!!!!! are u serious? I use zone alarm pro,
and I was amazed then frightened at how many times my pc was asked
to "share" my bank account number and passwords to it, as well as
ebay passwords, my social security number..and i never would have
known if not for being informed and then it being blocked by the
software..I too do all my banking and a lot of my shopping
online...who knows how long it had been doing so before
that....wow, livin life on the edge fer sure....

Click to expand...

Bill, here is my thinking. I have a feeling that the antivirus developers are grossly over-hyping the dangers to terrify the general public into buying software. I have never turned my computers off except when I bought new ones for over 20 years and for most of that time I have had 3 computers connected to the internet all day and all night every single day and every single night. No viruses, no maleware, no problems whatsoever. I visit many many websites every day. I live and work on the internet. I traded stocks and options for a living for 10 of the past 12 years and downloaded mountains of financial data including live real time data feeds from at least 3 different sources. Zero problems.

Ok, so you put Zone Alarm on your computer and suddendly you are getting "attacked" by maleware seeking you bank account numbers etc. I suspect that those attacks are completely bogus!!!!

You did not say that your bank accounts and social security number were stolen before you installed Zone Alarm. If these attacks on you computer existed AFTER you installed Zone Alarm, then they existed BEFORE you installed Zone Alarm. If the attacks were actually real and dangerous, your computer would have been compromised long ago. While I was trading stocks many other traders were installing Zone Alarm and other similar programs and they were telling me about the many, many "attacks" on thier computer revealed by the wonderful Zone Alarm. Baloney!! No one actually had any data loss or identity theft or other problems so I am very skeptical about what these "attacks" really are.

Bottom line is: exactly what is all this nasty maleware going to do to me anyway?? It can't kill me, so I ain't worried. I backup my important data and I know how to reinstall my software. So even if maleware wipes my computer totally out, I can fix it in one day.

You might say they will steal my identity and bank accounts. Big deal. No on can steal my actual money. A thief cannot steal my money by posing as me. The vendors, banks or credit card companies are responsible not me. If they are too stupid to verify the identity of people using my credit card, bank account etc without my authority that is their problem. They bear the loss, not me. True it would be somewhat of a hassle to untangle an intentity theft issue but I have had no problems all these years so I don't expect any. I will take that small risk of a problem rather than harrass myself diddling with anti virus and other types of maleware protection every day of my life.

I feel that anitvirus and other protective software is more trouble than it is worth. I take reasonable steps to protect myself by backing up important data and running my computers behind a cable router. And I even use Firefox instead of IE. I don't visit off the wall websites and I never open unsolicited email attachments. I never respond to unsolicited offers of any kind ever. I do business with reputable companies that have properly secured sites.

The internet is very safe if you behave in a responsible manner, just like in real life. I ain't affraid of the gremlins out there

Regards,

Bill Wood
Fountain Hills, AZ

Is it that bad?

It was free after rebate and had Ghost, which is what I really wanted.

i've seen problems on a friend's computer with norton , viruses got on and undetected . used avg free personally but had similar experience . now use kaspersky , thet update virus definitions hourly and i have auto update enabled , excellent product .

Avast home is free and workd great - the best ones seem tobe Kaspersky and Bitdefender according to extensive tests in several german computer magazines

http://www.kaspersky.com/

http://www.bitdefender.us/

Acutally, having been a long time user of the Norton products, I did not renew this year...too bloated and a drag on the system...I went with ZoneAlarm Suite..so far, great, and the increase in performance is nice also. Symantec support is something to be desired also...

--
http://marbleorchards.com
de mortuis nil nisi bonum

I use the paid version of AVG after having tried out the free version. The paid version updates much faster. Also using Ad Aware; no firewall.

Regards
TH

I switched to this program and have been very happy with the value and performance of it.

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