internet security

It is my opinion that many cable providers are rather dishonest and monitor everything you download for content they deem inappropriate. They also tend to throttle certain ports and protocols. If you don't know what I am referring to, then you probably have no reason to care about those issues.

You should call the ISP's you are interested in and ask many questions.

Gizmo speaks the truth about them throttling your access, which is totally unacceptable in my book.

As far as using Norton, I'll just say - I'm sorry. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

QFT

I just recently downloaded and tried Norton, Bit Defender, ZoneAlarm, CA, McAffe and Kaspersky.

I went with the Kaspersky for two major reasons and I highly recommend it. The first reason is because it has a very small footprint on your machine. Everything is incorporated into 2 processes that take up about 2MB and 6MB in normal operation for a total of 8MB (i.e. a very small memory utiliztion) and expand to perhaps a total of 50MB when some kind of scan is in progress.

The second reason is that you can get free phone support during normal business hours from native english speakers that actually seem to know what they're talking about. Of course they do try and encourage you to use a lookup database and online chat but if you push you can easily talk to a real person right around the corner from me in Woburn, MA.

I highly recommend Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 but you can google Internet Security Reviews and check out the reviews from various magizines, PCWorld and PC Magazine are probably the most reputable, and then pretty much all of the companies allow you to download and try them out for at least 15 days if not a month. That's what I did to finalize on Kaspersky.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/
http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/results.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_security

I use Avast. It works good, its free, and no problems so far

You dont really need anything other than a windows firewall, unless you go to a lot of random websites or download things.
But if you had to go with a good anti virus//firewall I will agree with Kaspersky or getting Nod32 (anti virus only)

o yah and mozilla firefox (IE is horrible)

All of them? That's like asking for a virus

Very Important!!

Not all free virus scanners are virus scanners. In fact, most are viruses.

The golden rule of computing: You get what you pay for. If you get a free scanner, it will work like a free scanner. Maybe that is enough for what you are doing, maybe not.

Second rule of computing: Buy the right tool for the job you are doing. Norton makes some very good virus scanners and firewalls, but they are large and somewhat slow at times. Thats because they do a ton of stuff. If you aren't going to be heading into the shadier corners of the internet, you probaly don't need their corperate firewall. If you are headed there, you certainly don't want Avast.

What Mumblefratz said.

I purchased Kaspersky A/V this year, and am happy with it.

In the past I've pretty much tried them all (Trend, Norton, McAffe...).

I think you have to read the reviews almost every year, as they seem to trade top spots in the rankings... what was #1 this year may be #3 the next.

Since my computer is older and slower than I would like it to be (kinda like me), I usually go for the one that has the smallest "footprint" or is the least demanding on my system, resource-wise.

AVG isn't so bad for being free

True, but were not all using torrents like you

I'm afraid that torrents are quite mild my friend. The real shady places are much worse.

My recommendations are based on the experience of my customer base, online research, and results of my testbeds. I don't even see the need to have anti virus on my system. I know with exact precision every file the runs on my system and remove them professionally much faster than a scanner.

Anyone of the perceived "top" products will do a fine job - its a quibble by mere degrees on which is better. As always the fine level of choice is individual perception of need versus their features. Just dont forget two timeless principles:

1. You get what you pay for, its free for a reason and not necessarily a good one.

2. The "number one" in anything always has a big fat luminous Bullseye painted on their Butt and many love to kick it. Get past that noise, and decide on value to you, not the volume of yelling from the herd of bullseye hunters that seem to prevail in many places these days.

Regards
Zy

I haven't had any problems with the free version of AVG.

I'm not sure that adage is true w.r.t. anti-virus programs any more, Zydor. The big two have been relying on name-brand recognition for a very long time, but without really innovating, or, frankly, doing all that great of a job at finding viruses.

I'm a computer technician, and I can't tell you how often we get machines that have MacAffee or Norton installed, but, at the same time, are just riddled with viruses. (Possibly because the people who install those programs seem to thing that they're protected, but never update the virus definitions or do a full scan.)

I use AVG, personally, and, while I find some things about it annoying as hell (stop force-updating when I'm playing a game, goddammit!) I think it's much better than the name-brands, and probably better. Some of the online scanners are also good, and can be useful for finding stuff that installed AV's cannot.

But, man, seriously, you should see some of the "protected" computers I have to fix sometimes... oy vey.

I'll stick with BitDefender.

what is funny here is that sonofsailor posted with a title named internet security.. then asks for advice on getting a new internet service provider, goes on to say that they use norton (whom I wasn't aware provided internet service) and yet people are answering as though the question bananna poke radiator flatbread.

More than likely they were asking which internet security suite was the best, but that is definitely not what they asked.

to answer, any fo the internet security suites are equally good or bad depending on how you abuse them.. for example, if you click yes yo run the activex control that gets you free porn, or lets you cheat at games, or lets you into the leet site that has the hacks and cracks, then it isn't really the security suites fault when you get the virus/keylogger/spyware..

good luck to you, norton is as good as any of the others..

I get a kick out of when folks blame a virus scanner for not working well when the definitions are out of date. At any rate, it makes a good point. Security only works when configured right and not overridden. No matter what is chosen, you have to set it up right, keep it up to date, and actually use it!

I agree, its nuts - some people buy the stuff and never update it, which is insane. I cant wrap my head around that mindset. Buying any anti-virus is almost better than nothing, but to buy one and not update beggars belief.

Regards
Zy

I recently changed from Norton AV/ZA free firewall to ZA security suite because Norton decided to make their programs 'single install' license (doubling it's price for me)...

I really love ZA security suite (it has a much smaller system footprint than fat, bloated Norton). I've never heard a bad word about zone alarm's firewall and it uses Kaspersky's AV engine, which is good too.

Bottom line for me, ZASS was a pain to set up the way I wanted, BUT it's nice and light on the system and it costs half the price of Norton for multiple computers.

I am not saying norton is bad but its uses up so much space not to mention the start up time
if i use nod32/(cant remember name of firewall) or if i use zone alarm
i cut that same time by almost 3 minutes (I am not patient enough to watch my slow computer load a bloated anti virus)