Computer securing programs

List your favorite anti spyware,antivirus and firewall programs and tell why you like them.

reply to post by gossipnancy


None, because most of them aren't worth the resource consumption/performance hit. Much more valuable IMO to learn what not to click/do to avoid virus infection. This is harder on platforms like Windows, in which even legitimate program installs often do all kinds of egregious things to compete for your attention/computer resources.

reply to post by AkumaStreak


A more practical answer is that most legitimate operating systems these days come bundled with applications that do more than enough to stop malicious software/provide security.

The most important thing to do is to set your operating system to download and install updates automatically. If you do that, you are infinitely better off, it's very rare that malicious software has ran wild in public BEFORE an update has already been made available to consumers via auto update.

I actually think there's no excuse for the kinds of malware problems seen in the Windows 98/XP (not sure about Windows 7) days other than bad design/Microsoft turning a blind eye to root problems/causes (I always wondered if they somehow profited from the existence of an antivirus/anti-malware industry).

Originally posted by AkumaStreak
reply to post by AkumaStreak

 

I actually think there's no excuse for the kinds of malware problems seen in the Windows 98/XP (not sure about Windows 7) days other than bad design/Microsoft turning a blind eye to root problems/causes (I always wondered if they somehow profited from the existence of an antivirus/anti-malware industry).

edit on 9/17/2011 by AkumaStreak because: (no reason given)

That's nonsense viruses have been around long before Windows ever game into existence. Timeline of computer viruses and worms

reply to post by gossipnancy


The "Microsoft Security Essentials" antivirus because it achieves reasonably good ratings on Virus Bulletin, is free, lightweight on system resource usage and very unintrusive.

NOD AntiVirus products. Simply because they are the best (but unfortunately, you also pay a premium price for a premium product).

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (Free) because it is fairly thorough and doesn't use any system resources at all when it isn't running.

Spybot Search & Destroy (without Tea-Timer runtime scanner loaded) because it detects different things than MalwareBytes and also has some nice "immunization" options that simplify "hardening" systems against attack. Also because it consumes no resources when not scanning.

SuperAntiSpyware (Portable) for when I want to be sure that a system is clean and I have doubts that the previous two products have removed the problem.

Finally, there are a number of tools that are written more for technicians, than for the general public to use. Most of these tools are root-kit removers but because of their nature, they can leave a system non-boot-able if misused.

Generally, I would direct those who don't deal in this sort of thing every day to post their details on the forums at BleepingComputer.com as the support guys there are some of the best.

I have also heard good things about the NOD on-line scanner (which is free to use) but I personally have had little use for it.

In theory, none of the preceding products should be necessary for a sufficiently "locked-down" configuration but the problem is that locking down systems invariably reduces functionality which in my eyes is worse that the possible risk of compromise or malware.

Originally posted by GNUFanx86

Originally posted by AkumaStreak
reply to post by AkumaStreak

 

I actually think there's no excuse for the kinds of malware problems seen in the Windows 98/XP (not sure about Windows 7) days other than bad design/Microsoft turning a blind eye to root problems/causes (I always wondered if they somehow profited from the existence of an antivirus/anti-malware industry).

edit on 9/17/2011 by AkumaStreak because: (no reason given)

That's nonsense viruses have been around long before Windows ever game into existence. Timeline of computer viruses and worms

I realize this. I didn't imply what you are implying. ;-) Microsoft could have imposed some kind of sandbox for user programs, rules for what programs are allowed to do on install, some kind of certification program for well-behaved software, etc., which they did not. I am largely talking about malware on the whole, not just viruses.

reply to post by AkumaStreak


I'd like to hand the mother of all +1's to this post.
With that said...

I use SpywareBlaster (from JavaCoolSoftware), which doesn't run in the background or use any system resources... I have a custom hosts file that blocks numerous porn, spyware and virus identified domains, and I have a copy of Ultimate Boot CD on a USB stick that I never, ever format or delete, so that I've always got something to fall back on. But with that said, I'd been using computers for 24 years now, and only had a potential data-loss virus oriented scenario once (in 1988)!