Help Please: Teh Innerwebs Security... Can I has it?

[soonerboy_odanorth]

Sooo... finally joining the modern world and disposing of ancient desktop and replacing with this fancified newfangled laptop thingamajig.

Said ancient desktop only had a (long since expired) McAffee Anti-Virus subscription on it. But I think in this dangerous new world of ours a bit more might be required for the new machine.

New machine has 2G RAM, 200G hard drive space, AMD Turion 1.9-2.1ghz processing speed- dual core processor.

So after researching security a bit, this is what I found:

Kaspersky is generally rated as the #1 Anti-Virus software going. It's a little spendy, but offers excellent and thorough protection without dragging down computer speed. Some conflict with other programs is reported, but generally minor.

Webroot's Spy Sweeper seems to be generally thought of as the best Anti-Spyware in that is simply has the widest dragnet, so to speak, and is very easy to use.

Zone Alarm Pro looks to be the top rated personal firewall, but I haven't been able to ascertain its compatability with Vista, or for that matter a standalone spyware detector program since this firewall has its own. The best rated then that I can find that is Vista compatable is McAffee Personal Firewall Pro. But it is pretty stripped down basic compared to others on the market.

For an all-in-one suite, most reviews point back to Norton and McAffee. But the major complaint with both is that they eat up a lot of space and can really be a drag on performance.

So, what do all you innerwebs experts recommend? A suite, layer the stand-alone products? What are your opinions on products?

Thanks to all you eeg-no-ray-moose hillbilies in advance....

[Ike]

Using the standalone products is usually your best bet. I don't know much about McAffee, but Norton will hog resources on your machine. (oh, and the time I did have it, if you had the firewall restrict which applications can and can't talk to teh innerweb, it generally meant that every single time you applied a patch to an application, you'd have to tell Norton that yes, this application is still ok to use the innerweb....whether that is a "feature" or a "bug" is entirely up to the user)

I found Zone Alarm to be a pretty decent firewall, however (and I haven't used it in a couple of years now), I don't know what kind of experience a less technically inclined person might have with it. It *should* be fine...but I'm not sure.

I also don't know much about Kapersky, except that they do a whole lot of shameless self promotion. I found that AVG (which is free!) was just fine.

[Partial Qualifier]

I think it comes down to how experienced you are & what you spend most of your time doing with computers.

If you're fairly comfortable with p.c. technology and use common sense while surfing or whatever, I'd recommend going the lightweight route - use the built-in Windows firewall, install Ad-aware and Spybot S&D (free versions) and get a decent virus scanner. We use McAfee but I'd recommend AVG or Panda as well.

If you have little experience, tend to click "yes" when you should've clicked "no", and spend lots of time searching for illegal software downloads, or have kids who might fit that bill & will use your new computer, go with an all-in-one suite. Hog it up. it'll probably save you time and frustration.

[OKLA21FAN]

AVG is your friend (and a free friend at that)

[rufnek05]

get a mac. no one bothers to write viruses for them.

[King Crimson]

i use AVG and it works fine. i bought two years of spyware sweeper for 20 bucks a year and a half ago.

as a bit of a novice, i also use sygate's free firewall (i believe recommended by Norm) and seems to work nifty. i was having some hijack problems about a year ago maybe. majorgeeks.com has a lot of links to freeware and some comments and ratings (FWIW).

[Ike]

get a mac. no one bothers to write viruses for them.
Except they do.

Macs are getting a big enough share of the market nowadays that there are viruses starting to appear for them, although, not nearly as many as there are for windows machines. Not even close.

Even on my mac, I run weekly virus scans. Haven't found any yet tho.

[rufnek05]

i'm thinkin about gettin myself a macbook g4. right in the middle of the price range. pretty good laptop it is?

[yermom]

there is no Macbook G4... the Macbook is pretty solid though...

as for the software packages... i use the free AVG virus and spyware programs and the Windows firewall, on XP SP2

but i'm also behind a Linksys router hacked to run Linux, though the Linux part is pretty optional

i've had no real problems as of yet

i also almost exclusively use Firefox and not IE

[soonerboy_odanorth]

I'll be using the 'puter heavily for work applications, but I'll be accessing those through a VPN/Citrix. And with that being an encrypted tunnel for me to work through (and since I won't be saving any sensitive documents onto my hard drive but rather to my co. servers) I think I'm getting a decent amount of protection for my work there.

So it sound like between my company's security and some of the freebies (AVG) I should be pretty secure. And I hope I'm a saavy enough "human-firewall" when it comes to surfing and e-mail by now. Though, point taken, I'll have to watch the monkeys when they are using it.

But one question... How do I get out onto the internet to download some of that free software without exposing the PC initially to malicious software?

Can you order a freebie disk from AVG, for instance?

[yermom]

they are small files and would easily fit on a CD or thumb drive

if you are behind a router and using at least the Windows firewall, i wouldn't worry about just surfing here: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0 to download stuff

[Animal Mother]

No lie. I have used AVG since 1999 thanks to the old Tech TV guy Leo LaPorte. Like the others have said it's free and easy (sounds like my girlfriend in the 9th grade). Seriously, if you have AVG and a router you're in great shape. Many of the ones you buy are POWER HOGS BIG TIME. They will slow things done quite a bit on occasion.

[yermom]

AVG does as well, but i'm not sure if any aren't

at least it doesn't get all up in your business like Norton does

i've cleaned off viruses easier to remove than their crappy software