I know I've got some security gurus on the ol' blogroll.
I need to pick your brains for a moment (braaaaaaains!). What's the best free firewall and/or anti-virus software out there these days? On the old computer, I was running ZoneAlarm firewall and AVG anti-virus and they seemed to be pretty good, if not a little resource-heavy.
Are there better products out there that I should take a look at?
Additionally, I'd been running Ad-Aware and SpyBot Seek and Destroy for mal- and spyware; any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
That is all.
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Here's a good rundown from Lifehacker of the "bests" from both categories:
http://lifehacker.com/395046/five-best-antivirus-applications
http://lifehacker.com/5061933/five-best-windows-firewalls
I pretty much concur across the board.
For malware and spyware, keep doing what you're doing. If you want some extra-deep scanning use HijackThis!:
http://www.download.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html
I've been using Avast! Antivirus for about a year and a half with excellent results. Free.
I have AVG on my laptop and Avast! on my desktop.
Some day I might switch the laptop to Avast!, but I'm happy either way.
Avast seemed to slow me down a lot on my desktop. . . . for what it's worth. . .
Here's another vote for Avast! It's running on both desktops and both laptops (including the business one) for my wife and myself.
ZoneAlarm firewall is still among the best, and I think the firewall-only version is either free or a pittance. It's the malware scanner and the updates that cost.
For fighting malware, Ad-aware and Spybot are good. I've also had occasion to use a program called MalwareBytes (www.malwarebytes.org), which seems pretty good & is likewise free for personal use.
And always practice safe computing: be careful of what you download and from where, never open unsolicited email attachments, yada yada.
Oh, and in case all the above defenses fail ...
KEEP BACKUPS OF ALL YOUR DATA!!
(hmm, was that perhaps a tad overly emphatic? ;-) )
My best advice?
Stop using Windows. If you have to use Windows, don't connect it to the Internet.
Use Linux or OS X.
CCleaner.
Another vote here for Avast! I've been using it more than 3 years now, on a desktop & two laptops, and it's performed quite well on all three.
I've used Avast and AVG, lately I've been running Avira
Here's another vote for Crap Cleaner. It does a fine job of clearing out the cobwebs.
www.ccleaner.com
I use Eusing Free Registry Cleaner, too. Speeds things up a lot, and throws out the garbage when it finishes.
www.eusing.com
Regards,
Rabbit.
I'm way late to the party, and even worse I pretty much agree with everyone's comments. ;-)
You might also look at the Tiny firewall (assuming it's still around).
Now the quasi-heretical suggestion is that none of the antivirus scanners are very good. Essentially, you're betting that you'll lock the barn door after someone ELSE'S horse gets out. These days, you have best case a 50/50 shot that any antivirus will pick up new malware.
So the firewall becomes MUCH more important. What you want is something that tells you when a new program is trying to connect to the Internet. Yes, it's an annoying pop-up message, but it will catch 100% of the new malware. If you don't let it "phone home", you're much, much better off. The new malware will be neutered (from a spyware/data theft/remote control point of view), and eventually you'll get an antivirus signature to clean it.
That said, I agree with Alan. I lurvs me my Ubuntu Linux. It runs on old, tired hardware, it's pretty secure out of the box, and there are all of 3 or 4 viruses that target it (as opposed to a few million - no that's not an exageration - targeting Windows).
Dang, that would have made a good post.
;-)
I advise all my friends to take advantage of AVG's free version or Avast. They're both excellent. Currently, I'm running Kaspersky, which I like better than anything I've ever used, but it costs money so once my license runs out I'll probably switch back to AVG.
FYI, a good anti trojan software like Trojan Remover is also a good idea. Although, truth be told, once I stopped downloading stuff from the internet & trying to save bucks by illegally snatching all sorts of things, my problems pretty much disappeared. Lesson learned.
No downloading warez files, no opening attachments in e-mails and staying away from online porn sites keeps me squeaky clean.
1) Keep the system patched
2) Do not run as Administrator unless necessary
3) Certainly don't let the kids run as Admin
4) Keep the computer behind a router doing NAT
5) Stop using IE for anything but banking or trusted sites.
If you get any malware/spyware/adware doing those things I'd be really surprised.
Best way to avoid Bad Stuff (tm): Linux. I prefer SuSe flavor, but that Ubuntu is what all the cool kids are using.
"No downloading warez files, no opening attachments in e-mails and staying away from online porn sites keeps me squeaky clean."
Damn, damn, damn...
(SRSLY, folks, thanks for the advice).
I used a phalanx of Norton System Works, Adaware, and SpyBot for the past eight years, and have never once had anything even approximating a serious bug on my Windows systems. This past year, I swapped over to McAffee, and have been impressed at how much better it seems to be than Norton (both in terms of efficacy and in terms of not hogging my computer resources).
Windows Defender also provides a good bodyshield out in front of the rest, but not much more than that.
I use Avast! and Comodo (firewall).
Ted said "What you want is something that tells you when a new program is trying to connect to the Internet."
Exactly. Translated to the geekspeak you're likely to see in product descriptions: you want a firewall that checks outgoing (or it might say 'outbound') connections as well as incoming (or 'inbound') ones. ZoneAlarm does this. I don't know which of the other currently-available firewalls do; I only know that when I first started using a software firewall several years ago, most of them didn't.
In fact, the latest version of ZoneAlarm is downright paranoid. At the maximum security level, it scans for any "suspicious" behavior by any application: inbound Internet traffic, outbound traffic, communication with other programs on your hard drive, anything at all. You can tell it not to, of course, and usually I do. Just be aware that that's how secure it can be.
Do NOT use Norton - a bigger pile of bug-ridden, performance-degrading, piss-poor CRAP has never been stacked.
I use AVG suite (the paid for version), but all my machines are behind other stacked defenses as well.
Another vote for CCleaner.
It cleans up your registry, speeds up your computer, and protects your privacy.
I also use Norton 2009. It is MUCH clicker than previous versions. It is not a memory hog.
I also use Spybot to good effect.
Those three do a good job for me.
Slicker, not clicker.
Doh!
I don't run antivirus software.
Run Vista with UAC on or XP as a non-admin user, and don't run attachments you didn't solicit, and you're just about as secure as with any AV software, with no overhead.
See here for reasoning as to why.
(And the best firewall solution is a router that does it for you, rather than using the OS's firewall, which anything that got administrator access [trivial in XP with user running as admin, less so in Vista with UAC on] can simply turn off or modify.
The firewall on your hardware router, if you wisely have UPnP turned off, cannot be modified by hostile software on your computer.)
I suggest backups, a VM (Microsoft's one is free, as is Sun's) for running anything possibly dubious inside, and doing occasional scans with anti-spyware software.
Antivirus scanners and active "firewalls" are performance killers and ineffective, most of he time. Not worth the effort and cost.
I cleaned up 15 "trojan horse" malware programs from an Avast-equipped system earlier this week. I had to install AVG to get rid of them. None of the anti-virus programs are going to get everything, but AVG's cost is low, and its performance is high.
AVG now includes a manual scanner, an on-access scanner, a link scanner (works with custom firewall), an e-mail scanner and an MS Office scanner plug-in. What is causing the performance hit is the on-access scanning. It also happens to be the best way to prevent problems. Sorry: speed or functionality; choose only one.
My advice is to get pro-active. Switch to Firefox, and only use IE where it is absolutely required. I shoved Mozilla-based browsers down everyone's throat at work (580 machines on network), and the problems with malware disappeared in short order. Also: operate the machine as a non-privileged user, and if it's XP, make sure that the hard disk uses the NTFS file system--because permissions are important.
I don't think Windows XP firewall is that bad, but it is basic. I only scan my XP machine once a year, and then uninstall the anti-virus software. So far, not a single "infection".
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