Best Internet Security/Firewall/Anti-Virius

[HAND]

Best Internet Security/Firewall/Anti-Virius... Bought or free.

Just wondering ...looking at Norton, Mcafee, Zone Alarm and some less well known like nod32.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Turner]

I like Avast! for a/v. Seems to work pretty good.

I've got a hardware firewall, so I'm kinda out of it with the software ones. And before the hardware firewall, I was using good ol' SP2 firewall.

 

[HAND]

I'm looking at going for ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 6 since its does seem good value (in the UK at least) and effective.

The only thing concerning me is the Suite 7 might be out in September though i believe its just an issue of updates rather than there being any real structure difference.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000A1LGHU/202-6328086-4959046?v=glance&n=300435&v=glance

I don't why but I like having the latest boxed version even though its not much different! I suppose it saves on the upadte time.

 

[Leatherneck]

I use AVG antivirus and it's free, I use a number of firewalls mainly setup on the router. I save no information and my life is not that interesting, doubt anyone would wnat it.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I use ZoneAlarm and Kaspersky.

 

[lost_civantares]

I have Zone Alarm, and have liked it, they seemed to have put thought into who will be using it, putting in such featues where you can have zone alarm automatically deny or allow requests while gamming, so you get no popups.

It also must be doing it's job because I'm getting this on the main screen:


29,346?

I also have spysweeper, but all that has really seemed to be to me is an annoyence, all it's ever really found is some advertising cookies, and the popups that it has when starting up and while gamining are very annoying sometimes.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

29,346?

And i've only had it for 9 months.

 

[Leatherneck]

The bulk of those inbounds are servers reading cookies. Like when you go to a website and there is a Amazon banner or some other like company an it says something like ... "Hi <insert your name> we reccommend for you <insert product> Click here for details."
I don't want to say all of those inbounds are that but I'd bet it close to 99.9% of them are harmless inbounds. Nevertheless it's good to protect your stuff, just doubt that many people are trying to get info off pesonnal computers ... there are bigger targets.

 

[Speedo]

Software firewalls are a waste of time & money most of the time, for most people. They block a lot of pointless (harmless) stuff, then try to pass it off as them doing a great job of holding off the barbarian hordes beating on your door. Just get a decent router with a NAT firewall.

Really, if you're careful about your browsing/downloading habits, you're even fine without antivirus, just an occaisional scan via some free service like Trend Micro. But, of course, it's safe to say that most people don't have safe (enough) browsing habits.

Personally I run a Linksys router, an old copy of Norton Corporate Edition AV, and Windows Defender (antispyware/malware).

 

[Leatherneck]

Software firewalls are a waste of time & money most of the time, for most people. They block a lot of pointless (harmless) stuff, then try to pass it off as them doing a great job of holding off the barbarian hordes beating on your door. Just get a decent router with a NAT firewall.

Really, if you're careful about your browsing/downloading habits, you're even fine without antivirus, just an occaisional scan via some free service like Trend Micro. But, of course, it's safe to say that most people don't have safe (enough) browsing habits.

Personally I run a Linksys router, an old copy of Norton Corporate Edition AV, and Windows Defender (antispyware/malware).

Agreed ... I run a router firewall (d-Link) and (knock-wood) I can't remember the last time I've even seen a virus active or inactive on any of my computers. I think it was that Happy birthday one back in the mid 90's in the dail up days, a lot of AV attack normal programs and many spywares attack normal programs. But if they didn't keep the public in fear of hackers trying to steal your identity they wouldn't sell much product would they. Sometimes I think Norton is the one writing the viruses.

 

[TheVirus21]

Norton Anti-Virus 2006, regular scans and regular live update, like spedo said watch your browsing habits and keep your software updated.

 

[kalif]

Kasperky.
Since the Russians make the best viruses, they have to know what to do against it, too.

 

[Mulholland]

I use AVG antivirus and it's free, I use a number of firewalls mainly setup on the router. I save no information and my life is not that interesting, doubt anyone would wnat it.

How is AVG free? I just downloded thier trial version and have to buy it in 30 days or no more updates....Do you know something I dont?

 

[Turner]

There's a free version....are you sure you just don't need to re-register it after 30 days? One of them, AVG or Avast, I had to renew almost immediately. But I've never paid for it, it was free.

 

[Mulholland]

AVG seems to want my money. I don't think I can re-registewr w/o wiping my HD. But then again I'm a computer idiot.

 

[Turner]

I know for a fact there's a free version: It's on my wife's laptop. Try downloading this, see if it want's your money.

 

[Mulholland]

Thanks Turner! I'll look into it tomorrow.

 

[Speedo]

AVG seems to want my money. I don't think I can re-registewr w/o wiping my HD. But then again I'm a computer idiot.

May need to clean some registry entries, but no more than that.

 

[Naked Paladin]

I like Avast! (free version) for antivirus and I use a hardware firewall, Windows eats up enough resources without adding another program to the mix.

 

[bhsup]

Has anyone tried ClamWin? It's an opensource AV product based on the ClamAV engine. Unlike Avast, AVG, and Anti-Vir, it's free for both personal and business use whereas you cannot use the other for free in a business environment. Very low resource footprint, but I don't know how it stacks up against the big names.

That said, I use McAfee Internet Security Suite.