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Seeking opinions about combination antivirus/firewall products
jgpaiva:
Armando: i can't seem to find anything relevant right now, but many many people around here defend that if you have a router at home, there's no need for a firewall.
As for a spyware preventer.. I'd go for spybot.
Curt:
I was surprised to read that spybot can prevent, as I thought it will only offer to clean up the mess after the damage has been done. Maybe my (lack of) memory is confusing me, but will spybot offer more prevention than:
Permanent blocking of threatening ActiveX downloads
Permanent blocking of known tracking cookies for IE
Permanent blocking of threating downloads in IE
--- End quote ---
:tellme:
--
I have been using Outpost Pro for several years, but are not going to get the new Suite within the next year (at least), because the anti-virus part is based on Kaspersky - and my NOD32 license runs for yet another year ... :-)
Did you consider a virtual solution? It may remove the need for a firewall.
Armando:
Thanks for your suggestions.
I guess I will just try different combinations and see what my computer seems to prefer...
Curt : a while ago, I used to have outpost and NOD32 installed and it seemed to work pretty well. It's just that, well, Outpost got mixed reviews in the last year, so I was wondering. I tried the comodo firewall last night and my experience was not too bright : slow connection, strange Explorer freezes...???!!! :-\so, I might try outpost again.
jgpaiva : although I've had bad experiences with firewalls in the past (and some of them were supposed be very good -- zone alarm), I think I need one because I'm using a laptop... and so I connect to all kinds of networks (some of them unsafe, most probably).
Lashiec:
Prevention of spyware... the same Windows Defender, Spyware Terminator, the aforementioned Spybot, Ad-Aware, AVG Anti-Spyware, a-squared, SpywareBlaster (for IE)... Pretty much you can protect the computer with good free software, or paying some dollars for a little more protection (including trojans and other malware). If you can don't install SpySweeper or Spyware Doctor, not only for the bloat and slowing factor, but for other (possibly paranoid) reasons :-[
About firewalls... you might as well go with the one built in Windows. Seriously, nowadays firewalls are not firewalls, but clumsy "I'll protect you from everything, but you'll get no productivity at all" suites. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but for example both Comodo and Outpost carry HIPS modules (very talkative things), and in the case of the latter, they also include the kitchen sink. For now, use a router (until I get my hands onto the subject, it's what I'm using), or light firewalls, if you can find one, of course. Scot Finnie is also conducting a firewall test on his own computers, so check up his website to see what he recommends. Word of advice: It seems the guy fall in love with methodology used for testing over there at Matousec, which means a firewall is an application monitor, and not a piece software that should prevent the bad guys for getting in there at first.
Or you could as well go with nothing. Yesterday, in the main page of Ars Technica they featured this discussion about the need of security software, and the conclusions are rather surprising. Who knows? Maybe we're a bit paranoid, but frankly, having to wade through a flood of popups just to have the feeling of security makes me uncomfortable. Probably, it's better to practice safe computing, and stop worrying about the bad guys. Or switch to Linux :). Gizmo is going to kill me if he reads this ;D
And then you read this other article, it scares the hell out of you, and you put walls around the computer.
One more thing: Layered defense (one application taking care of every type of malware) is better than a multi-layered suite, although this might not be true about Kaspersky.
Curt:
A virtual solution still might be a better solution. ;)
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