[maspears]

I just bought a new laptop, and am looking for suggestions on security software for it. It currently has the 60 day trial version of of Norton on it. I am not too fond of Norton, as past experience has shown it to be a memory hog, among other things. The laptop is running Vista Home Premium. My thoughts right now are to run Comodo Firewall Pro 3 and Avast! 4.8 home, along with threatfire3. Does this sound like a good start? Anything else should look, better options possibly? Thanks for any help.

Alex

[gr277]

Originally Posted by maspears

I just bought a new laptop, and am looking for suggestions on security software for it. It currently has the 60 day trial version of of Norton on it. I am not too fond of Norton, as past experience has shown it to be a memory hog, among other things. The laptop is running Vista Home Premium. My thoughts right now are to run Comodo Firewall Pro 3 and Avast! 4.8 home, along with threatfire3. Does this sound like a good start? Anything else should look, better options possibly? Thanks for any help.

Alex

Vista's own firewall correctly configured is good. IMHO there is no need for a third party firewall with Vista.
I also use AVG 8 (paid version) and I am very pleased with it.

[midders]

I've been using the following combo for years now and never had a problem with any virus:

Latest free version of AVG (Currently 8.x)
Comodo Firewall Pro (as you suggested; it's free and superb!), having a hardware fiewall built into your ADSL Modem/Router is always the best idea for browsing from your home network, also.
WinPatrol Free version (monitors all sorts and also enables you to disable most of those un-necessary startup programs)

For spyware I occasionally (every week or two) run the latest version of Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy; one of these has a resident shield included, but I've never found it necessary to have it running all the time.

In addition to all this:
1. DELETE Outlook Express and use Mozilla Thunderbird or something similar and set all emails to be shown as plain text (if you need to see any active content you can always enable this for individual emails).
2. Use Mozilla Firefox (or other) as your main browser and make sure that you have the NoScript add-on installed.
3. Keep your version of IE scrupulously up to date with latest fixes and use it inside Firefox using the IETab add-on for those sites out there that still don't believe there are any other browsers than IE!
4. Set IE and Firefox to clear all temporary files and folders on exit, accept only session cookies and delete them on exit also.
5. If you use Windows Media Player then un-check the box that says "Run script commands when present"

For safety on your wireless network (if any):
1. make sure you change the default admin password!!! (You'd be amazed...)
2. disable broadcast of SSID
3. use the highest encryption/security protocol that your router and wireless devices support (preferably WPA/PSK2) with a suitably long and, ideally, random key
4. use MAC address filtering so that only devices that you specifically allow can connect to your network

Hope this helps

Sláinte

midders

[SlashRevolver]

NOD32 smart security is pretty good, it uses very little memory, has one of the highest virus detection rates, daily updates, and is easy to use, with lots of advanced options

[jsparky77]

Of all the tests for free software i have seen, this is probably the best Mix:
AntiVirus: Avast OR Avira NOT BOTH
AntiSpyware: SUPERAntiSpyware, Javacool SpywareBlaster and Malwarebytes Anti Malware
Heuristics: ThreatFire
Firewall: Comodo

Email: Mozilla ThunderBird
Browser: Mozilla Firefox

I would definitely NOT use AVG, Spybot, Ad-Aware or Vista's Firewall. The first three have TERRIBLE detection rates and Vistas Firewall is definately better than XP's but is still not that great.

Also, if it's no big deal, run Windows in a Limited User Account. That way, if something is trying to install something without your notification, Windows won't let them. But that also means whenever you want to install something you have to switch accounts.

[jsparky77]

For paid suites, I wouldn't look at anything but Kaspersky Internet Security or NOD32. They are THE best and they are leading the rest of the paid suites.

I would also get the paid version of SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware because all security suites antispyware is pretty dismal.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by midders

For safety on your wireless network (if any):
1. make sure you change the default admin password!!! (You'd be amazed...)
2. disable broadcast of SSID
3. use the highest encryption/security protocol that your router and wireless devices support (preferably WPA/PSK2) with a suitably long and, ideally, random key
4. use MAC address filtering so that only devices that you specifically allow can connect to your network

For most people, MAC address filtering only means that they can't connect their new laptop to their network, or their desktops (assuming they use wireless) when they change NICs. And that the tech they call when they have problems also can't connect his troubleshooting laptop (if the router is physically accessible the tech should be able to get around this by connecting wired, at least long enough to disable the MAC filtering-but I've found that some people stick their routers on the top shelf of a closet or similar inaccessible places). So I don't recommend this unless you really need the absolute maximum in security.

Similarly I don't recommend disabling the SSID broadcast. Sure, it helps to hide your network-from you as well as from others-but not all that much. Any cracker out there could detect the network anyway, whether they could see the SSID or not. (Disabling the SSID broadcast doesn't stop the network from broadcasting, obviously.) Again, the most common effect of this is to cause problems for legitimate users attempting to set up their own connections.

So the basic question here is "how much security do you want?" If you want the most you can get, then I recommend following all of this advice, and even more. But if all you think you need is reasonable security combined with ease of setup, then I'd recommend advice 1 & 3 only.

Strike 'only'. Even reasonable security should include a firewall, port monitoring, etc. I suppose I said 'only' because I was just considering the recommendations that were posted.

[midders]

Originally Posted by jsparky77

I would definitely NOT use AVG, Spybot, Ad-Aware... The first three have TERRIBLE detection rates

What are you basing that on? The last time I checked the reviews (admittedly, a while ago) AVG was the best of the free AV s/w and gave better results than many of the paid for stuff. As for malware; I've just downloaded and tried SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti Malware and they certainly didn't pick up anything that Spybot or Ad-Aware missed, although that might only mean that I have a clean system

Sláinte

midders

[jsparky77]

AVG definitely led the market a while ago but as viruses evolve anti-virus programs have to as well. What AVG has done is follow Norton's lead, high CPU usage, low detection rate.

As I said above, these programs have been chosen after looking at many tests. I haven't seen any recent tests that would back up AVG, Ad-Aware or Spybot.

[RootbeaR]

Originally Posted by jsparky77

AVG definitely led the market a while ago but as viruses evolve anti-virus programs have to as well. What AVG has done is follow Norton's lead, high CPU usage, low detection rate.

As I said above, these programs have been chosen after looking at many tests. I haven't seen any recent tests that would back up AVG, Ad-Aware or Spybot.

AVs'

Free = Might detect and remove AFTER getting infection
Paid = Deter ever getting infection

Buy F-Secure.

[jsparky77]

Originally Posted by RootbeaR

Buy F-Secure.

F-Secure is constantly rated in the middle of the pack in terms of paid antiviruses.

If you want leading edge security, buy Kaspersky or Nod32 who constantly rate at the top of the pack

[lunarlander]

Here's a simple checklist to harden your system against attacks:

http://www.mechbgon.com/build/security2.html

[jsparky77]

That's a great site lunar

[RootbeaR]

Originally Posted by jsparky77

F-Secure is constantly rated in the middle of the pack in terms of paid antiviruses.

If you want leading edge security, buy Kaspersky or Nod32 who constantly rate at the top of the pack

This doesn't look like the middle. For either year.
http://forums.techguy.org/general-se...re-review.html

[calvin-c]

Ah yes, looking things up for yourself is a *lot* better than taking someone else's word for it. Something that we ought took especially take notice of in the US as this is an election year with all the "my opponent believes this" BS being thrown around. People can say whatever they want-but before you decide whether or not to believe them, check it out for yourself.