Internet Security - necessary or not

[MadKaw]

My internet security suite has expired and looking around it would appear you can get plenty of free stuff that does the same thing.
Any thoughts / recomendations on good set up for anti virus, spyware, firewall etc..?

[Smitty]

Dave

I use ZoneAlarm Personal...freebie firewall
Spybot...freebie
Ad-aware ...freebie
and pay for my anti-virus... Australian 'Vet'
$42 pa for daily updates and excellent support

hth

cheers
Smitty

[Adel]

For a virus scan I use a Mcafee, I for get how much but its good
and as for spy ware http://www.lavasoft.com its free and is pretty good just follow the instructions scan once a week it always finds somethin and there is also windows defender wich it also free you probably find it on the microsoft web site

[Daisy]

I use ZoneAlarm. Spybot and AdAware I run when I think of it, but I have AVG free. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

As to the original question; I run all of these programs to protect my windoze machine - but I don't run any with Ubuntu.

[mike-s]

Firewall: Kerio (now sunbelt) Personal Firewall, other pro's are it has version control abilities in that it will pause and/or block the execution of programs if the crc has changed on it, you can set to allow, deny allow/deny always. Same goes for applications spawning other applications. Or you can use the "most allowed" setting in which case it'll let your pc get away with most things, but still block potential rouge software connections. It's free to use, but you pay to have additional protection of web filtering, which is available for use for free for the trial period.
on that note i have used lavasoft firewall as well for friends pc's, looks pretty good too.

antivirus: Avast, free registration required, it has its moments where it's a pansy and acts spastic, but a reboot usually fixes that (i bring it upon myself by running it for ages after it nags me to reboot post-new-program-updates)

anti spyware: Spybot ( http://security.kolla.de ) and adaware ( http://www.lavasoft.com ) do the trick.

Also im running a squid proxy on my linux pc and have got "ad zapper" on it which can get rid of 90% of adverts on pages, saves me bandwidth, and gets rid of 90% of the pop over/under ads

[javaman]

I never use antivirus and never got infected. But I heard AVG is good and free.

Lavasoft adaware for spyware (free).

[Lone Wolf]

AVG and Avast are the 2 I've always heard are very good. Norton's is SHIT

[Loz]

I run loads of shit to keep my PC clean...

And not a fucking thing on my Intel iMac. Amazing machine.

[Gosling1]

Dave - AVG works pretty well, and its free .....I also use SpyBot search & destroy, it gets a run every week, its free as well.

[ozx6r]

avg virus and avg anti-spyware a great,free nd cn be scheduled to do daily updates and the a scan while your asleep , so its pretty much set and forget.

i find avast was slowing down the computer to much with its resident crap that runs!

[NortikittyKat]

I run AVG.... auto scans and updates... never have to worry bout a thing... and its free!

[Benno]

Please dont install Zone Alarm. That, along with Norton's is probably the WORST program I've ever come across. I currently use AVG Antivirus, as well as the AVG Anti-Spyware. I also have Adaware and Spybot, Search & Destroy. Each of the spyware programs seems to remove things the other's cant.

[mike-s]

handy hint, if you think you've got a virus on your computer and are having a problem with the installed antivirus products, download the standalone antivirus program from drweb.com, it's good, and has helped save my arse more than once.

[QuickaKwacka]

Dave, have a look at this site and in particular the comparo of firewalls, Windows Firewall scored the lowest, followed by Zone Alarm free, basically it was the testers opinion that they were not worth the trouble as they just did not work, worth reading the mag and lots of good free stuff if you want it.

http://techsupportalert.com/issues/al_current.htm

Regards
RonnieG

[Kwakka Kilt]

AVG and AdAware for me too..... After my PC got highjacked, had to rebuild the entire F'in thing

Since AVG went on, nothing .....

Sweeeet.