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Sick of Symantec...what firewall and antivirus software do you use? (1 Viewer)

Bryan X

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Yes, ZoneAlarm does this. I use ZoneAlarm for firewall and AVG for anti-virus. The price is perfect! :D
 

Luis Esp

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May 25, 2001
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I've used Norton Systemworks for many years, but I regret upgrading to the 2006 edition.

What a nightmare!

When my system wasn't hanging, it was crashing.

Now I'm trying Ace Utilities and AVG anti virus.

I have to find out if I can my money back from Norton.
 

Chris Bardon

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I also switched to AVG after getting sick of the norton uninstall/reinstall/get one more year of coverage cycle. I also have the windows firewall configured as well as a router, which should be more than enough. AVG is just as automated as NAV ever was, with the added benefit of being free. I also have Windows AntiSpyware installed, which is a sprprisingly good product.



There's an option on Firefox to delete all of that stuff once you close the browser (cache, history, cookies, etc) if you're looking for something like that.

Still haven't found a cookie manager for firefox that's as good as AdSubtract was though. Anyone know of something? Ideally, an extension should prompt when a site tries to set cookies and give you the option of permanently allowing, temporarily allowing, or blocking permanently.
 

Darren Lewis

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Just a quick question. Do people prefer all-in-one solutions (AV, firewall, antispam etc etc) or separate products for each job?
 

Kimmo Jaskari

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One word of caution; a router protects against stuff coming in on the WAN port, ie the port where your Internet connection is. It does nothing to protect you against wireless traffic, as that is considered to be inside the perimeter. For that reason as well as a "defense in depth" approach, it is always a good idea to run a software firewall on the machines on the network. The built-in windows firewall will do fine in a pinch but won't alert you for outgoing stuff which can be bad if you get hacked.

These days, most threats aren't attacks from the outside in, but rather trojans etc; you download a program that looks innocuous but unbeknownst to you it installs a backdoor on your machine that calls out... and presto, your machine is owned by a cracker. A real software firewall can help prevent that by alerting you the first time that trojan tries to call out. That has, in fact, happened to me once.
 

Neal_C

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Johnny,

When I recommended AVG and just using your router as a firewall, I missed that you said you were using wireless. In that case, as people have suggested, use ZoneAlarm to monitor the traffic in and out of your system.



Darren,

I prefer seperate solutions. AVG for antivirus. ZoneAlarm for firewall (only if I'm using wireless; for wired I just let my router do the work). And then the free antispyware solutions.

I have tried Norton and McAfee before and they have given me nothing but problems.
 

Scott Merryfield

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When my McAfee subscription ran out a couple of months ago, I decided to switch to AVG, too. So far, I'm having no problems on our two PC's.

As for hardware vs. software firewalls, I had been running both (Dlink wireless router and ZoneAlarm) until recently. I liked ZoneAlarm's feature of telling me when a new application tried to go outbound from the PC -- it's a good way to detect viruses and trojan horses.. However, I began experiencing problems with ZoneAlarm locking up my new HP's LAN connection, requiring me to shutdown ZoneAlarm to get the connection functioning again. On that PC, I just turned on the Windows XP firewall as an added precaution. On the Dell PC upstairs, ZoneAlarm still is functioning properly.


If you've taken other security measures on your wireless LAN, I wouldn't be too concerned with absolutely still needing a software-based firewall -- although the added security won't hurt. Enable WPA authentication/encryption, turn off the broadcasting of your SSID, and minimize your DHCP scope to the number of devices on your network and should be well-protected.
 

Darren Lewis

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Yes, I do too. These all-in-one solutions seem bloated and aren't always the best at everything.

So what about standalone software firewall recommendations?

ZoneAlarm (free) seems to be popular though I've heard about problems people have with it.

Sygate used to offer a free personal firewall, but now that they've been assimilated by Symantec they don't any more :frowning:

I want to get rid of Norton off my laptop as it seems to be running a lot slower since installing NIS2006. It's got wireless and I use a 3G card sometimes so I think I'd be happier with a good software firewall on it as a replacement.

My desktop's OK as it's behind a hardware firewall and BitDefender Standard provides adequate antivirus protection.

Thanks.
 

Johnny Angell

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It looks like prior to June, 2003, AVG usually failed the 100% test. Since then, they have usually passed, though they did fail as recently as October.

Unfortunately, to get much access to articles, you have to subscribe to this site.

Based on this site, anyway, it looks like AVG has got its act together.
 

Rommel_L

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Apr 25, 2000
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This is what I'm using:
firewall : Zone Alarm (free edition)
antivirus: Grisoft AVG (free edition)
antispyware: Spybot S & D (active)
Microsoft AntiSpyware beta
Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal (free)
Cool Web Shredder
HiJackThis

Did I mention they're all FREE?
 

Mike Voigt

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Rommel,

add javacool's spywareblaster to that set, and you should be well clear... plus it's free too ;)
 

Mike Fassler

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heres what I use and highly recommend, I never had a virus in as long as I can remember.

firewall - Dlink router - software firewalls are a waste of time, but if I did use one Id use Look N Stop or F-secure.

anti-virus - AVG or F-Secure

antispyware - spywareblaster,spysweeper,adaware,FireFox ;)

Also do a google search for Ccleaner a very handy free tool that will help keep your pc clean of junk.
 

Bryan X

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Not quite. A combination of both a hardware and software firewall is ideal. Hardware firewalls are good in that they provide a strong measure of protection against most forms of attack coming to your computer from outside of your network. Most hardware residential firewalls have an Achilles' heel, though, in that they typically treat any kind of traffic traveling from your computer network out to the Internet as safe, which can be a problem.

Let's say you received an email or visited a website that contained a concealed program. This program could be designed to quietly install itself on your computer and then secretly communicate with someone out on the internet (ie. keystroke logger, DDOS Attack Zombie, etc). A hardware firewall, without outbound protection, will do nothing to stop this.

A software firewall only gives programs you specifically allow, access to the internet. In this case, the software firewall would protect you by alerting you to the attempted communication and deny the program access to the outside.
 

Mike Fassler

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thats why your anti-virus scans your emails ;) and i dont accept emails from people I dont know, people are over paranoid about getting viruses and such, if you practice safe surfing you really shouldnt have any issues. and besides my router has built in protection against DDos so im not really worried, also my hardware firewall doesnt waste my system resources which is more valuable than getting the virus ive never had in 8 years.
I scan for virii once a month using both avg and online services no problems ever found. and since I dont give anyone else in my house access to my pc im not worried that I will get one for sometime.
 

Bryan X

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I've seen enough to know that your diligence is the exception, not the rule. The average user does need these protections.

I used to run my computer without virus protection as you do. I never got infected either as I was careful as you are. And I didn't want the system resources wasted on virus protection. But with today's computers that's just not a problem. I'm running a Dual Core 3.2GHz system with 2BG RAM and ZoneAlarm, AVG, and Microsoft Anti-Spyware don't even begin to make a dent in my resources.
 

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