Internet Protection

I've never had any real problems with viruses or trojans nothing. But I thought why not have a little more protection, at the moment I have:

Firewall: Widows default

Anti-virus: AVG 8.0 Free

Spyware: Spybot Search & Destroy

I was just wondering if there was anything better? Free of course is my goal here, oh and I need to be able to get rid of them. Strange request I know but I have a friend who got a great firewall but he can't get rid of it lol, why would he need todo such a foolinsh thing, because one of his online games can't get through it,no way no how. Even in the allow through list, nothing. I just wanna be able to de-activate it & un-install if I need to.

I was reconmended AVG & Spybot S&D ages ago & have never looked back but I just wonder is there anything better? Firewall wise i'm well aware there are far better ones, but are any of them free & any good

Thanx for taking the time to reply

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

I have a similar setup, use AVG Free edition, Comodo Firewall and run Malwarebytes about once a week. So far, so Good. Also, keep the system cleaned up with Ccleaner, great little program.

 

Check out this link of Top Freeware Picks. http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20 They're all favorites of MG! Lots of free software to protect yourself from malware etc in that link. But the best prevention is a cautious surfer and downloader.

 

You can load down your PC with all sorts of so-called "Security Software" till it can barely crawl, but the secret is to pick the least number of programs to give you the greatest security.
FREE is not only desirable, but for many of us, it's Mandatory.

AVG 8.0 FREE and Spybot S&D 1.6 is my own choice, as a professional tech, for keeping myself and my hundreds of customers free of malware at NO cost and the least amount of Overhead.

If you want to add another layer or two of "Prevention" you can add the FREE "Spyware Blaster" and the custom HOSTS manager, "HostsMan".
I use both, but again, both are Passive and do not run in your computer, but pass off the information they download, to your browser, so it can know what web sites to avoid. Updating all of these passive programs once a week is not only sufficient but essential, for best security.

Spybot is the only program that posts updates on a regular schedule to their download server. They always post updates on Wednesday of each week.

AVG 8.0 FREE, updates automatically once every day that the computer is turned on. You can set the actual time in the update scheduler.
The AVG Pro version, can update every four hours.
I've truly had four updates from AVG in just one day.

Nothing I've mentioned here will EVER cost you a penny. However if you truly appreciate the work and expertise that goes into programs like Spybot S&D, you surely can make free-will donations. I try to donate something to each program author at least once a year.

With good active and passive protection as I've mentioned here, the windows firewall is sufficient. It runs quietly in the background and won't load down your CPU like so many after-market firewalls can.

Good Luck and Happy Computing!
The Shadow :cool

 

So basically my protection is fine, I only wondered if it was enough.

Knowing that it's fine still after so long is good to know

Thanks for you your input guys, I think i'll leve it for now.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it", but you may wanna update it lol

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

P.S, I do donate to Spybot S&D every now & again :-D

 

windows firewall is pretty bad. if you need a software firewall, check out comodo.

 

I thought the built-in firewall for Vista is pretty good. Am I wrong?

 

i dunno about vista.

 

Here are some reviews about Vista's Firewall:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6690672-1.html
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...ista_firewall_fails_on_outbound_security.html

See this link for Vista compatible Firewalls. There's also Online Armor Firewall free: https://www.tallemu.com/downloads.html

 

Sorry, editing time expired. Here's MG's link to free firewalls that I omitted in my previous post. http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20

 

Everything I know about malware protection I have learned from Major Geeks. Two more things you can do for additional security that I learned from the "How To Protect Yourself Against Malware" sticky in the Malware Forum are: use Firefox and not IE, and use a limited-privileges user account rather than a full-privileges administrator account when you are surfing the Internet.

 

I agree with Shadow, windows firewall is sufficient,but in addition Im behind a "hardware" Firewall (router)

 

If he was running Vista I would agree with you in that the firewall is sufficient. However, according to his sig he is running XP. Personally I would disable that firewall and install one such as Comodo - not my favorite, but it does the job better than the XP firewall.

 

nice. thanks for the links. :major