FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

What protection do you use? Please be sure to mention whether it's free or paid, and what exactly it does. If somebody above already explained one of your apps, please still mention the name to gauge popularity.

For instance:

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I use SnoopFree, ProcessGuard, AVG, Avast, MSSpywareRemoval, and Sygate.

SnoopFree is a free app that monitors screen-captures and keyboard-captures.

ProcessGuard is a free app that gives me more control of whether programs are allowed to start.

AVG is a free virus scanner.

Avast is a free virus scanner.

MS Sypware Removal is a free spyware scanner.

Sygate is a free firewall.

-Sam

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

I use:

- Zonealarm's free firewall
- Snoopfree (described above)
- McAfee's virus scanner, free from AOL (which is also free now)
- Lavasoft's AdAware, a free spyware scanner

I'm also hardwired into a router sitting between me and the DSL modem, and I think the router has some firewall capabilities. I think I have the Windows firewall turned on, too.

Edit: I also have used a free root-kit scanner called RootkitRevealer I got from sysinternals.com.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

SnoopFree & ProcessGuard.

Antivir is a free virus scanner.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

AVG - free virus scanner
Zone Alarm - free software firewall
Spybot Search & Destroy - free program that I run occasionally to check for spyware etc.
Adaware - free, same function as Spybot S&D

I also think it is very important to mention that one of the most important things people can do is to make sure their Windows machine is up to date with all of the latest Microsoft security patches and updates. I find that so many of my customers machines are still running XP Service Pack 1!!

Another important thing people need to know is, a virus scanner that is not updated almost DAILY with the latest virus definitions is basically useless. Again, I find so many computers that I work on have some sort of virus protection but it is months or even years out of date. (and in those cases they almost always have viruses.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

I hope it's OK that I bumped this...the info in here is about 8 months old, so I didn't know if it could use an update.

Inspired by quite a few posts I've seen here over the last month slagging Norton and confirming my suspicions that it was a resource hog, I finally gave it the boot tonight after Ghost locked things up on me yet again. Surprise, surprise [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img], I'm enjoying what seems to be a considerable bump in computing speed.

So, now that I'm down to just Windows Firewall, what next? I want to be well-protected, but I also don't want to lose all that speed I just regained. I'd be surprised if I've had more than 2 or 3 incidents of a virus being caught by an anti-virus program in the last 10 years (and none getting through), nor have I had any adware for many years. Do I really need anything beyond Windows Firewall and AVG? Maybe Snoopfree if it isn't resource-intensive?

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

Also, I see AVG has free Anti-Spyware & Anti-Rootkit programs. Anyone know if these are any good?

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

I'm using a router between my machines and the rest of the world. On my windows boxes I have OneCare running and run the occasional Ad-aware and/or Spybot on them.

More importantly, I don't open attachements from strangers in my email or download games or crap from the internets.

On my Macs I just run whatever firewall came with them.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

blink by http://www.eeye.com, it pretty much locks down your computer but it still fully usuable (higher end applications and full screen games do require that parts of the protection be pulled down). It's free and fairly light weight(much more so than norton).
The government use a version of it and the research team actually block things considerably better than microsoft does(they stopped the animated cursor zero day exploit on 3 different levels before it was out in the wild).
I personally cannot use it(I just use the comodo firewall instead) because the anti-hacker software punkbuster used by many online games doesn't like it very much but I would highly recommend it to anybody who is fairly computer literate.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

win vista firewall + avg on my laptop

win xp sp2 firewall + avg on my desktop

router

common sense

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

Best firewall = ZoneAlarm Pro: USD 39.95

Best antivirus = Kaspersky Anti-Virus: $49.95

Best antispyware = Spyware Doctor: $40

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, I see AVG has free Anti-Spyware & Anti-Rootkit programs. Anyone know if these are any good?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd like to know this too.

Also, how good is windows firewall (vista) compared to free zonealarm?

Thanks

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

doesn't avira popup ads all the time?

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I use:

- Zonealarm's free firewall
- Snoopfree (described above)
- McAfee's virus scanner, free from AOL (which is also free now)
- Lavasoft's AdAware, a free spyware scanner

I'm also hardwired into a router sitting between me and the DSL modem, and I think the router has some firewall capabilities. I think I have the Windows firewall turned on, too.

Edit: I also have used a free root-kit scanner called RootkitRevealer I got from sysinternals.com.

[/ QUOTE ]

Im no expert but having two firewalls running simultaneously is probably a very bad idea.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

i just have dial up and if i try to use one it takes too long for my email to load.
i have been on the net for twenty years without any protection and have never got anything at all. i do worry though, but never open attachments i dont know about, or load any crap from the net. and i dont feel my life is missing out for it.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

[ QUOTE ]
i just have dial up and if i try to use one it takes too long for my email to load.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you try to use what? None of these programs will make downloads take any longer.

[ QUOTE ]
i have been on the net for twenty years without any protection and have never got anything at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you dont have an anti-virus, anti-spyware, or firewall, how do you know?

You are somewhat insulated from these problems because you use dial-up, but I'd give you a decent price that you have more malware on your computer than you claim.

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

Comodo Firewall - very good free firewall
AVG antivirus - good free antivirus, Kaspersky may be better
WinPatrol - patrols in the memory, monitors malware, detects new autorun processes, monitors new scheduled tasks etc.
Spyware Search and Destroy - free, but not the best spyware detector
AVG Anti-Spyware - free too
Roboform - keep my passwords safe and allows entering password without using the keyboard (keyloggers are not able to detect my passwords). Free up to 10 logins (I bought it).

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

Kaspersky suite is quite good. Although it's not free, it comes w/ a 30 day free trial and has one of the best detection rates on the market. Not to mention, it works w/ Vista 64 as well....

Re: FAQ: Which virus/malware protection should I use?
 

I run AVG (switched from MacAfee after my subscription ran out, primarily because the updates would not work unless I logged in as an administrator. This is not a problem with AVG. I also run Spybot scans daily. I do not run any software firewall, but I am behind a NATted router.

I am also very careful about not using an administrator account unless I need it, and often do tasks that require administrator privileges from my user account using "run as".

While not a security program per se I also use PrivBar, which is an Explorer add-on that displays the user ID and group. This helps keep me from forgetting that an explorer window is running as an administrator, or, if I have two Explorer windows running under different accounts, allows me to keep track of which is which.