Antivirus-Firewall-ad blocker-Advice Needed!

I currently use Norton Internet security and am really happy with the coverage of this product with antivirus, firewall, ad blocking and anti-spam integration with MS Outlook....but I think it's really slowing my computer. I also like the ease of use, you don't need to be a system professional to work the product.

Is there any other solution that is just as good as Norton Internet security with the features I listed above but doesn't KILL system performance?

Any guidance is appreciated.

Have you tried McAfee? I have it on one of my computers, and it works pretty well, it does'nt slow down performance as much as Norton. However, I think that any such compilation of applications that have numerous processes running at all times will have an effect on computer speed and performance.

On the computer I am on at the moment, I am using SystemMechanic Pro, v6, which has most of the features of NortonSecurity plus other features to keep your system optimized. But there are a lot of tradeoffs with this app. It doesn't slow down my computer noticeably, but I feel that the protection level is not what it could be.

Whatever you do KL, get rid of that bloated monster.

chissler has some more helpful info in his thread that is stickied to the top of this forum, as well.

Use a router and set it up as your firewall i think thats the best solution for firewall enabling a hardware firewall.

1.) Grab a copy of Sygate, a free software firewall.

2.) Grab a copy of Spywareblaster to protect your browser against malware, also get Spybot and immunize your system with it.

3.) Ther best Virusscanner is sitting in front of the monitor its called common sense.

4.) Adblock in combination with Firefox should do the trick.

Firewall: Zonealarm Firewall
download.zonelabs.com...

Anti-Virus: AVG Free edition
free.grisoft.com...

Spyware: Adaware SE Personal Edition
www.download.com...

Spybot Search and Destroy
www.freewarearchiv.com...

For ad blocking I also recommend Firefox with Adblock
download.mozilla.org...
addons.mozilla.org...

King,

The combo that I use is this...

Antivirus: AVG
AVG

Firewall: Filseclab
Filseclab

Spyware:
Spybot,
Spybot

Bazooka
Bazooka

and
Advanced Windows Care...
Advanced Windows Care

The one single advantage of these programs is that they are all free..

Second and just as important to me is that they do not slow me down at all. They are very unobtrusive programs that are my quiet little friends sitting in the background waiting for me to use them

I use them on my home computer and my Forensics machine.

Easily updated, easy of use and availability are also attributes of these little Jewels.



Semper

Thanks for all the advice everyone.

Does anyone know if Windows Live OneCare is a decent product?

Also if I get something that doesn't have Internet ad blocking is there any standalone solution that I could use separately from the antivirus suite.

The best solution which works perfectly for me and would satisfy your needs would be:

* Hardware firewall
* Firefox with Adblock plus (Remember you can't use Adblock plus on this site)
* An alternative operating system such as Sabayon linux
* Gmail

No need for antispyware/spam/virus etc. I'm pretty sure this is the best approach available. All this anti*/software firewall etc. crap is a very bad strategy from a security perspective.

[edit on 2007-4-27 by bracke]

not at all bracke

ive gone onto the internet witha xp pro without sp1, 2 or any patches at all armed only with a software firewall and did not once get infected


now remember mydoom? the virus that caused the os to shutdown after 1minute?

well when all ports are closed due to a software firewall you are safe as it can get, that being true if you use some commonsense and dont visit porn sites or the like

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus
not at all bracke

ive gone onto the internet witha xp pro without sp1, 2 or any patches at all armed only with a software firewall and did not once get infected


now remember mydoom? the virus that caused the os to shutdown after 1minute?

well when all ports are closed due to a software firewall you are safe as it can get, that being true if you use some commonsense and dont visit porn sites or the like

I'm sorry but I've been ddos:d and hacked several times. With Windows and a pretty good software firewall (Outpost) they entered my computer anyway. Now my net just slows down. A firewall is a concept not a piece of software you add on top of a desktop operating system. Sure I could understand if you were using something like M0n0wall but installing a software firewall on top on e.g Windows just makes it worse. Don't forget that a hardware firewall can be easily disabled, crash or malfunction somehow. A firewall should be a machine that uses as few services and applications as possible. That's why companies use hardware firewalls from ex Cisco and Symantec. I can admit however that my hardware firewall is not the best one out their (though one of the best for home usage). For enterprise usage there are really good firewalls out there. A good firewall could easily cost over 4000$.

I'm not saying that software firewalls are totally useless but for experienced hackers they are an easy match.

[edit on 2007-4-28 by bracke]

[edit on 2007-4-28 by bracke]

Sure thats true but real hackers arent usually intrested in normal users, they are more after banks, creditcard numbers etc

But for the typical normal user a software firewall can still be of use and another thing i like is my dynamic ip which gets changed every 24 hours

Static ips are more likely to get abuse than dynamics as you cant be found that easily unless using p2p , messenger systems or chats and such