The one thing software firewalls can do that home grade router hardware and XP firewalls cannot is intercept outbound traffic. Of course the outbound traffic problem often means whatever it was it got IN first and may have permission to get out.
I cleaned up a machine that had a virus generating hundreds of emails an hour, and norton IS was was merrily scanning each email for viruses on the way out generating a little notification box every time it did, the notification boxes filled the screen a few minutes after turning it on.
The new Kapersky Labs program is a complete suite, including Anti-virus and anti-spyware.
Spywareblaster and Spybot are both free for Spyware. It is not a bad idea to have an NON-active (blocking only) second line of defences for Spyware. Spywareblaster does that well- and it’s free.
This months Consumer Reports has a good article on this stuff.
Try uninstalling a damaged/corrupted copy of any AV program without the software to do it? Its a pain, even AVG.
AV software is kinda like an undercover cop. Sometimes it has to act like a virus to catch them or protect its core components from being damaged by them. This is also why running multiple AV apps sometimes gets parts of the other AV app flagged as suspicious or virused files.
Sadly, it’s going to be far easier, better and faster to do a “nuke and pave” complete re-installation of Windows to get rid of Norton or McAfee. They thread their tentacles into so many far-flung bits of the registry that you can easily spend hours trying to find them all.
Speaking as a security pro, I recommend either AVG or Avast. The price is certainly right, and their development has been just as good as the big guys. They also consume a lot less of your system resources, so you’ll probably notice that your PC runs a bit faster with them as opposed to the big sprawling “suites”
I used to use Zone Alarm, back in the days when it was lean and mean and did what it said it would with a minimum of fuss at maximum effectiveness.
But then it got fat.
And I got a router, which has its own firewall, and I maintain pretty high security through that, so I’ve had no need for a firewall.
For antivirus though I’ve always stuck with Norton. It’s been effective and, despite being a resource hog, I’ve had no issues. I have a pretty beefy system that can handle the overhead, so I’m not particularly concerned. It doesn’t leak memory and has never crashed on me, so I stick with what works.
I bought AVG and it’s working just fine. Unfortunately, I also bought Kerio Firewall and am having problems already. Waiting for a reply from tech help.
Let me second/clarify this: If you have good habits, don’t open unusual email attachments, don’t download questionable software, don’t use kazaa-like downloading serveices, don’t often get spyware, etc…
…AND YOU CAN SAY THE SAME FOR EVERYONE ON YOUR NETWORK…
then you don’t need the local firewall; the router (assuming it’s NAT, almost all of them are) will function as an effective firewall for attacks from the outside.
I don’t use one (a personal, local firewall) on most of my systems. In my experience, people either almost never get malicious outbound traffic (usually the case if they’re otherwise protected), or will click on the “unblock” message anyway, at which point it doesn’t matter that the firewall caught it. I worry much more about attacks from outside–hackers and the like–rather than what my machine is doing. But then, I’m very careful about what goes on my machine in the first place.
I personally would be more concerned with an imbedded keylogger/trojan reporting home. If it does they already know how to get in wilth minimum muss or fuss.
The ratio in my work computers has been about 3:1 Norton to McA, but in any case, always with the subscription expired and too often it was a hacked version. :smack:
Can you recommend a program for keyloggers and trojans?
I use AVG, which beats Norton and McAfee hands down, but don’t know if it detects keyloggers and trojans.
BTW, Consumer Reports overlooking AVG in its ratings is par for course. Those folks can be so clueless at times.
Personally, I’m a big fan of NOD32 - totally unobtrusive, tiny footprint, excellent detection. About 1000 times better than either Norton or McAfee. I actually paid for NOD32 rather than use a free copy of Norton.
And also quite possibly the slowest antivirus product ever devised. I tried running it, but the molasses processing speed convinced me to delete the program.
Update on Kerio Firewall. It never worked. Tech support tried several work-arounds, then admitted that the latest version “has a bug”. Then why the fuck did you release the goddamned thing before testing it? I got my money back and will go with Zone Alarm or an upgrade to AVG.
AVG will hit trojans as well as some keylogger type items. An anti spy app like Windows defender or will be better for that type of thing, free download from microsoft.
