[bulldawgz72]

I just reinstalled XP home SP 2 and dont have an antivirus or spyware blocker at all. Please give me an honost opinion on what prevention software I should install. All feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[bigjohn000]

trend micro's internet security and antivirus. on line at trend micro, or at best but. on line is a better buy.

[RootbeaR]

Originally Posted by bulldawgz72

I just reinstalled XP home SP 2 and dont have an antivirus or spyware blocker at all. Please give me an honost opinion on what prevention software I should install. All feedback would be greatly appreciated.

http://internetsecurityandmaintenance.blogspot.com/

[new tech guy]

I would say run avg free antivirus and comodo firewall.
avg: http://free.grisoft.com/
comodo: http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.c..._firewall.html
As for anti spyware id reccomend 2 freebies (the scanner you can have one or both but bear in mind they do not offer active shielding, they are on demand) For scanners choose either ad-aware or spybot.
Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
spybot, S&D: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
To help gaurd things from getting in, you could use this free little app. Note, that it has no background processes and does not use any recources to protect your machine but works very effictively. This is spywareblaster from javacool.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
Note, that javacool's application is also in spybot but they are tested and safe together and may help each other out in the end.

[sup2a]

there has been a constant sort of competition if you like between anti-virus programs, as you can only run one... quite a few people advise you use AVG and almost exactly the same will be against it...heres what i think....
Avast has a higher detection rate than AVG meaning it (avast) will pick up more, i find the interface easier to use as well... it also has some Realtime protection that could be handy....
some people dont suggest using Sypbot Anymore as it really isnt up to it anymore... still it has been good to me and i still suggest using it...
COMODO firewall is a very nice free firewall, i recommend it over any other free software firewall
SuperAntiSpyware is good too

but dont just take one person's opinion....because there is certainly going to be someone with more knowledge no matter how knowledgeable you are....
its the same sort of thing for Anit virus/spyware/malware programs...they may say your computer is clean while the other could find a serious infection
well i think ive rambled on for long enough

[new tech guy]

Sup2a, i still reccomend avg free despite the publicity about low detection rates as i have been using it for a long time on my machine and have had no virus issues.

[sup2a]

Originally Posted by new tech guy

Sup2a, i still reccomend avg free despite the publicity about low detection rates as i have been using it for a long time on my machine and have had no virus issues.

my second choice would be AVG but i have to stick to saying it has a low detection rate....Many infections slipped right past on my computer, i have seen it for myself let very dangerous infections destroy computers

[lunarlander]

Also you should consider running it daily using a limited user account, as that prevents some
malware from working and prevents malware from making system wide changes. In the Unix world,
nobody runs a machine daily using the admin account. MS acknowledges that and has made UAC
for Vista to achieve the same end.

Also along the lines of protection and prevention, use Mcafee's Site Advisor, available here:

http://www.siteadvisor.com/

It places a site rating besides every google result and tells you about malware infested sites before you go clicking on them and instantly infecting your machine.

[sup2a]

wow! thanx for that Lunar thats the only god thing in mcafee (my opinion) that i actually wanted

[new tech guy]

Atcually recently, avg and comodo stopped playing nice. Not too long after comodo updated. The problem was that whenever avg's updater would run it would just get stuck doing 100 cpu. I guess a bug comodo caused cause i experiemented without comodo and it worked fine. Was atcually about to move to avast when comodo released the update which seems to have fixed the issue.