Antivirus & Firewalls - Your opinion wanted

I had always used Zonealarm and NAV.

Now I have NAV and Norton firewall ...it came with my new mobo.

I have always liked NAV but it seems like its getting more and more bloated.
I dont really have confidence in Norton firewall yet, but the demo period is running out and I have to make a decision.


Rate yourself from 1 to 10 (poor to awesome) in computer knowledge and network knowledge

What do you use for Antivirus and Firewall protection?
Has it ever let you down?

Would you install this on a relative or friends computer who rates a 1,1 in the above or would you recomend McAffee or NAV to them for the sake of simplicity?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Hi Jake,

Perhaps you could start forming an opinion by reading threads like this one.

www.belowtopsecret.com...



Best of Luck

I won't rate myself as it's my husband who is my tech support guy and he's a 9. (Well, he's a 10 in my opinion) He's a software engineer for 25 years.

We have Zonealarm and Kaspersky (excellent cutomer service) and our router has a firewall, too. We have never been let down.

If you have a persistant connection (cable or DSL) he recomends the above, as Kaspersky updates at a predetermined time. If you're not connected, it skips the update, so that's why it's not so good for a dial-up connection.

If you have an intermittent connection (dial-up) he recommends the free version of Zonealarm and NAV. Norton handles the upgrade better as it detects when you're online and updates then, but our experience is that their tech support sucks.

They both have really good virus detection.

One more thing. We have very little experience with McAffee so can't speak about it.



[edit on 22-11-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

Jake! Howdy.

NAV and McAfee are equally bloated and problematic. Uninstalling McAfee once caused me a lot of grief. I have tried several solutions, and I've learned that an AV / Firewall combo made by the same company is the best way to go. As such, I reccommend Kaspersky and Trend Micro PC-Cillin. I have used both. Of the two, I like Kaspersky more, but PC-Cillin is a little less expensive, I believe. Kaspersky has more intuitive and better-laid-out controls that PC-C.

So, I guess that makes two votes for Kaspersky.

Zip

Trend Micro Internet Security 2006

- Award-Winning Anti-Virus
- Comprehensive Firewall
- Spyware protection
- Spam filtering
- Security checks (Windows vulnerabilities)

All in one program which uses less system resources than most other antivirus progs alone.

A much more proactive approach than Norton/McAfee/Panda/etc.
Checks for updates every 3 hours.
Provides "outbreak protection" alerts when there's a new outbreak "in-the-wild" (unknown but detected threat outbreak)

As far as I know, it's the only antivirus/firewall program which incorporates "wireless network intrusion" protection.

All of the above + free phone support for the life of the product.

$49.95 No Brainer

Free HouseCall will scan your entire system for virus and spyware threats. See how what you have stacks up.*

* I have yet to run a full housecall where it didn't find something the client's "protection" had missed.



[edit on 11/22/2005 by 12m8keall2c]

I often wonder why it is that people always assume that the program that costs the most is the best. It's a pervasive attitude in capitalist societies it would seem. Nevertheless, some of the best things in life are, indeed, free! A very good anti virus program that IS FREE is AVG. It is easily just as good as any of the other anti virus programs and any difference is easily outweighed by the extra coin that has remained in your pockets.

As far as firewalls, ZoneAlarm -- another free program -- certainly does the trick just as well as anything that you would find bundled in Norton or McAfee.

One thing that I always do when I am looking for a good program is to check out the programs' ratings on sites such as CNET. There are a lot of sites that you can check up on various programs that you might want to use.

benevolent tyrant,

Actually I purchase licenses for Trend Micro in multiples, and with an added valued customer discount, I get them for about $26/ea

As for using a myriad of "free" programs ... go right ahead.

IMO Norton/McAfee are extremely bloated programs, using excessive system resources, and require too much user input/intervention.

Personally, I like the K.I.S.S. approach. Install it, set it, forget it.!
Trend Micro ... it just works!

I am not an affiliate, nor an employee, however I have yet to receive a virus/security related service call after having installed the program. It just works.

All-In-One
Low Resource
Set it and Forget it.

I'm using Mcafee without any issues. I used to have Nortons, but I know a lot of people that mysteriously got viruses that they couldn't clean with Nortons about three days after their subscription expired.

Free programs are certainly a viable way to go. I tried AVG in combination with Zonealarm and the combo did everything you could ask of free programs. I use Trend Micro's solution at the moment, though, and I'll probably use it throughout the next couple of years, at least. With Trend Micro's PC-Cillin or Kaspersky Labs suite, you really can't go wrong.

Zip

Thanks for the replies and links folks.

One note, the AVG does not appear to be free. AVG

Originally posted by jake1997
Thanks for the replies and links folks.

One note, the AVG does not appear to be free. AVG

Yes it's free with some limitations, check this link www.grisoft.com...

I'm using Avast AV, it's also free for non-commercial use www.avast.com...

Here's a link to AVG Free Edition:

free.grisoft.com...

Zip

I have used Norton for two years and my latest version is Norton Internet Security 2005. I have to say that I like the Norton interface and the knowledge base and all and that it does work, but the software uses an awful lot of resources and can be quite unstable. Twice NIS 2005 has decided that my subscription has expired and won't let me download my virus definitions from IntelligentUpadater, which can be done everyday and is for those who throw all caution to the wind while surfing among others.

The second problem with Norton is the customer service which is basically non-existent unless you want to pay an arm and a leg. For free you can get email support, but they only refer you to the knowledge base and you are left to wade through all that to find the solution on your own.

Since I purchased this software, both MSN and Comcast have started to offer McAfee for free to subscribers and since I subscribe to both, I'm going to switch to that when my Norton subscription expires or I have to do another reformat, whichever comes first.

Another problem with Norton is getting rid of all traces of it from your computer, so when I do switch, a reformat will probably be in order anyway.

[edit on 2005/11/23 by GradyPhilpott]

Grady, beware of McAfee as well. I experienced major problems:

After you uninstall McAfee Personal Firewall, one or more of the following issues may occur:

You are unable to view Web pages.
You are unable to ping URL addresses.

Heh, well, as far as I know, it only happens when you uninstall it using the control panel's add/remove programs dialog, but it indeed creates an unrecoverable situation, forcing you to reinstall your OS. Also, if you're just trying to dodge stability and system resource issues, I feel it's my duty to inform you that McAfee these days is almost as much of a resource hog as NAV. (In one review of NAV that I read, the guy's available resources went from 92% to 70% after installing NAV.)

Zip

This website does in-depth comparisons of many AV products on a regular basis:

www.av-comparatives.org...

Zip

Zipdot,

If you have problems accessing websites, etc. after uninstalling a firewall program, the remedy in most cases is a simple Winsock fix.

For WinXP use the following:

Open "regedit" --> H_Key Local Machine --> System -->CurrentControlSet -->Services -->then locate and delete the two Winsock keys (Winsock & Winsock2).

Close regedit and restart the machine.

Then goto Control Panel, Network Connections, right-click on your network adapter, choose properties.

Click "Install" --->choose "protocol" -->click "Add". When prompted choose "Have Disk" then type in "C:\Windows\INF" click OK

Choose "Internet Protocol [tcp/ip] --> Click OK --> Click Close.

Restart and all should be fine.

[edit on 11/23/2005 by 12m8keall2c]

That was among some of my problems. Do a search for "McAfee Uninstall Problems" or something and you can see the entire host of problems that people experience.

Zip

Zipdot

No need to Google it ... I'll just check my answering machine.

Norton, as mentioned by Grady, is another culprit of incomplete uninstalls. Even though it states "Uninstall Complete" it leaves behind many registry entries and several directories which often impede a re-installation.

wow

Glad i never used Mcafee

Installed AVG FREE on the other comp. (Win XP Pro, AMD2600 512 RAM)
When I restarted, windows explorer could not start.
There was an error number and thats it. No start menu. Only the desktop which you could do nothing with because explorer didnt start.
A look on the web reveals this to be a common problem with no certain solution except uninstalling AVG.

I could get the Task Manager via cntrl alt del and then FIle , run process.
I tried starting explorer manually with no success. I was able to find the setup prog (at the suggest of someone on the AVG forum and ran it again to uninstall AVG.

Everything is fine now. AVG has some work to do on making their app compatible with XP Pro systems with multiple users.