[LaMujer]

Wow, the more I read, the more confused I become. I'm in the market for new security software because my current AVG AV+Firewall is expiring, and I've found AVG to get consistently low ratings in many reviews. It also nearly brings my XP Pro system to a standstill while it runs its scan. My first thought was to get separate/independent AV and FW programs. After a lot of reading, I'd about settled on Avast and Online Armor (both the free editions) until I began to question compatibility issues and configuration time (with the OA firewall). I don't really want to spend a long time breaking in a new firewall, and, at that point, I decided to consider the suite approach, going back to Norton with NIS 2009. I'd abandoned Norton programs a few years back, disliking the heavy hit on performance and the sheer bloat of the programs, but all the reviews of the current NIS 2009 I've seen suggest that is a lean, mean fighting machine with good protection. Then I started reading about conflicts with SpySweeper (which I'd just renewed for our 2 computers), and that got me wondering about SpyBlaster, which I've used for quite a while. To complicate matters further, I've read that no AV software is necessary if one uses Threatfire or DriveSentry, no software firewall is needed if there's a hardware firewall operating, etc. I'm definitely on overload here, and I'd welcome some fresh thinking.

[1002richards]

Hi,
There are some good independent, unbiased reviews of free security progs at Tech Support Alert:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/pc/security-tools.html

I hope these are of interest.
Richard

[LaMujer]

Thank you, Richard. I found this list helpful! I guess a big problem is that there is no one, perfect, fast solution to the ever-increasing problem of malware, and it's not even easy to evaluate the programs you put in place. If you don't get infected, is it because you have such good protection, or are you exercising caution in your surfing habits, or are you just lucky?! In any case, I appreciate your help.

[1002richards]

Just to add another ingredient!! I do all my surfing using Sandboxie which creats a virtual pc so everything is wiped when I close my browser.
I've found it simple to use and it makes (in my opinion) a useful additional layer of security with no slow down in performance.
http://www.sandboxie.com/

Richard

[LaMujer]

I considered this program a long time ago, but I thought it would really slow performance. I'll take another look. Thanks!

[lotuseclat79]

Hi LaMujer,

The thing about AV scanners is that you definitely do not want a full disk scan kicking off when you are web surfing. Best way to handle this is to do the full disk scan in Safe Mode, and then reboot. I used AVG free for this purpose and did it once a week on the weekend. I also used the free anti-trojan A2 scanner like this, but never when I was online - I turned off all the scheduled scanning mechanisms. Btw, my platform was WinXP Pro SP2.

For Internet access online I subscribed to TrendMicro's PC-Cillen which has a software firewall built-in which can be configured. It was alright and got daily signature updates. Today, if I bring up my WinXP platform again, I would replace PC-Cillen with ESets NOD32 which is a heuristic scanner and it also uses signatures, but with the heuristic scanner, it has a better chance of surviving zero-day malware. This is also paid software.

For real-time agent monitoring I used the light foot-print agents built into Webroot's SpySweeper - they were very good! I'd recommend them to anyone - paid software.

I had a free HIPS, and some other experimental software that I think you now have to pay for.

Good luck with your choices!

-- Tom

[LaMujer]

I appreciate the additional perspective, and you've provided more food for thought. I've probably expected too much of my (paid) AVG AV scanner in trying to carry on computer use as usual during a scan. Thanks to both of you!

[1002richards]

You're welcome.

Richard

[hewee]

I have Avast free and Online Armor paid version and they get along ok.
I got a nice new computer with lots of power so don't see things taking a heavy it on the computer. Now on my other computer it would take a heavy hit.

I also know someone who has the newer Norton and it was all redone and slim down and fast he said so much better then it had been in years.

But I also run SpywareBlaster, WinPatrol Plus, Hostman, Avast, Online Armor, a-squared Anti-Malware, SUPERAntiSpyware Professional,Bitmeter that all start at startup.
Spybot - Search & Destroy without tea timer I run on my own.

But got the PC to do it. I don't think I could even do this on my other computer. 98SE with AMD XP-1800 but 512MB of ram.
Now new computer is a Dell, Vostro 410
Windows XP Professional
2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache
3072 Megabytes Installed Memory


The added memory I know has helped but even then most times when I look I am using less then 1 GB but more then the 512 MB I had on the other computer that had me using the swap file a lot more and that slows things down. I bet on the Dell I have used a lot more Memory then 1 GB at times but I don't go looking all the time to see. I know the CPU is very very low like 0 to 1 percent looking at it just now so lots of computer sure helps out.