Hi,
I have win 2000 sp3. I had Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus 2003. Now that my licence has expired and I am not completely satisfied with Norton's performance, I was wondering which Antivirus, Firewall and Spyware is the best ( Free Or Paid ). I have read a lot of reviews and I am confused. NAV, McAfee, AVG, NOD, Kaspersky, Trend, Panda, Zonealarm, Sygate, Kerio, Tiny Personal Firewall, Black Ice. Can someone help me decide? I do a lot of downloading and am connected with a broadband connection.

Thanx

If all you do is read reviews, you will get confused. Both firewall and anti-virus likes/dislikes depend on the user. You have to try them to find out which ones you are most comfortable with.

As for firewalls, if you are fairly comfortable with them, then I think Sygate would be a great choice. If you are a bit scared of them, try ZoneAlarm for awhile until you get more knowledge about them, once that happens, ZoneAlarm may end up not giving you enough configurations that you want or need.

As for anti-virus programs, AVG is the most talked about and considered to be very good. If I were to pay for one, I'd use F-Secure. But these programs not only have to work, you have to like them, if you hate them and don't properly configure and use them, they do no good.

My advice for now, unless you just want to pay for software and be done with it (can't blame you), is to download AVG antivirus and the free Sygate firewall and test them for a month or two. Then, if they aren't quite what you're looking for, try others

On a side note, I've only heard bad things about BlackIce, it always seems to be wide open to threats. And I thought Panda hadn't updated their virus definitions in a long time.

we all have our favorites. I run a Linksys BEFSX41 hardware firewall on my Roadrunner connection, Mcafee software firewall, Mcafee AV, AdAware, SpyBot S&D in advanced mode, SpywareBlaster.

A few port probes do make it past my Linksys & are caught by Mcafee.

Other people are very happy with freeware firewall & AV.

Hi there again, I accidently forgot to warn you about using the free AVG, they will not give ANY tech support. I don't like that, but I haven't had problems so far. As with anything, you get what you pay for. I still recommend it and definately Sygate, with Sygate the only thing missing is a few advanced features, otherwise it's fully featured, easy to understand (once you read the help file) and works great.

Hi,
Thanx 'dw226' and 'sonnysandiego'.
I am very comfortable with configuring and using firewalls and would like a firewall with most options possible. I have tried Nortons Personal firewall and McAfee's Personal firewall and find them only satisfactory, I wanted a more secure firewall.
Wot do you think about Tiny personal Firewall?
As for AVG Antivirus i was only concerned about its reliability since it is free, i was not sure if it is as efficient as commercial antivirus software.
Thanx

I use AVG free , adaware , spybot S&D , and Zone Alarm free . This combo works great on my machine . Can honestly say i haven't had a virus on my machine since starting using AVG about 1 and half years ago . Was using inoculate IT free until it wasn't anymore . :-)
This is on a Windows ME machine , I like AVG because it doesn't use many resources like Nortons does , kind of ridiculous the impact NAV has on the performance even on newer high power machines .

For antivirus I have Norton, NOD32, SOLO and eTrust installed on my systems and my friends/relatives computers. For a firewall; Zone Alarm, Sygate and Kerio are my choices. I have computers that are old and have limited system resources that require diffeent products to maintain any semblence of speed. I have never had a problem with the eTrust antivirus, which is now offered with a version of Zone Alarm pro as EZ Armor(http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/index.cfm for free for one year. NOD32 uses little resources and customer support is excellent. Norton is one large program and requires a lot of resources, sometimes customer support is the pits and 2004 can take forever for some systems to boot up. I have had problems with Windows 2000 and Me using Norton 2004 because of this problem. I have used SOLO to repair infected systems with good results, their support is excellent. The free firewalls I recommend are first Sygate, I have never had anyone(about 40 people that I installed it for have a problem), it is full featured and easy to use for just about anyone. Zone Alarm is my next choice, easy to use and set up. Kerio is for those people that know what they are doing, but it is really a good firewall, and uses very little system resources and works on old versions of Windows.

Thanx Guys!
Your suggestions were very useful.
I have installed AVG free version and spybot Search and Destroy free version and i'll install ZoneAlarm as soon as i download it.
Any more suggestions are welcome
Thanx

I use NAV, The Cleaner(from Moosoft.com)Zonealarm free, spybot, Adaware, Bigfix(i found the latter very useful)

HTH

Woof

*The best programs are those that suit your system and your way of using your system.
The following suit me down to the ground:

Security Easy Guide
all credit for the good stuff to rogie & suzi for this compilation:
any crap/mistakes/blunders remain mine.
Below is a list of ‘must haves’ that work together and once installed, will make your system very, very secure. If you’re concerned about security, you’ll want to visit these sites! Everything listed here is 100% free.
1st, you need a firewall to block most intruders. A great free firewall that has most features anyone would need is Outpost at http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html Other good firewalls are Kerio and the one I use, Sygate.

After you install your firewall, you must configure it. You’ll want to scan your ports and test your browser security. Poor browser configurations can make any firewall useless. A great free site that checks both is http://www.auditmypc.com. A must check site is http://grc.com

Now you need something to stop the pop-up advertisements, etc. Google has a great free product located at http://toolbar.google.com

If you really want to hide your information, such as what sites you have been to, operating system and browser type, then visit http://www.sankey.ws/proxomitron.html. With this, you not only get to hide the information your computer gives out, but also change it as well! Example: Internet Explorer can appear as Netscape.

And of course you’ll need an Anti Virus software package that will check email as well. For this, use AVG which also includes free updates! http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

To remove spyware from your system, use AdAware along with Spybot Search & Destroy.. They do a great job of getting rid of it. LavaSoft’s free product called Ad-Aware found at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware. SpyBot Search and Destroy is found at http://www.safer-networking.org/

To prevent spyware from being installed, get SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. (Also the immunize feature in Spybot S&D.) SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard come from Javacools at http://www.wilderssecurity.net/index.html MRU Blaster is also there. [great for cleaning up all the hidden windows lists from your hard drive.]

The utilities below are a little more technical and not necessary, but are worth checking out if you have time.

If you want to know what programs are running and what ports they are using, then visit Sysinternals located at http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/utilities.shtml and download Process Explorer or TCPview.

If a program is running on your system and looks to be communicating with the internet, then use Ethereal at http://www.ethereal.com to capture the data. This is the best packet capturing product on the market!

If you have a problem related to spyware, viruses, Trojans or browser problems that are annoying or appear dangerous, then HijackThis can create a log report of your startup programs for analysis by experts in the Help forums. Spywareinfo is probably the leading forum centre in this field, but Compting.Net is not far behind and are a great friendly bunch of dedicated tech heads.

original post at http://www.computing.net/security/wwwboard/forum/7826.html

Hi.
The best program in any security category is a personal preference mostly.
Many good programs have been mentioned already.

Here are some programs that I like.

Firewall:
Outpost Pro 2.0.
It's easy to set up and has plugins like Attack Detection,Advertisement Blocking,etc..
It has apllication filtering and decent logs.
You can trial it,you have to pay to keep it after trial ends.
One note about Sygate's free version..that firewall has(at least it did when I used it) back-tracing.That's a nice feature in a free firewall!
Antivirus:
I recently trialed Dr.Web and I'm keeping it.LOL.
It is light on resource usage and it scans Outlook Express mail.
Updates are daily and they are small(incremental).
A few things about Dr.Web:*you shouldn't have any other antivirus installed when installing this program.
*Dr.Web has strong heuristics which can lead to some false positives.I like the heuristics,but some users may find f/p's annoying.
Antitrojan:
I prefer the Cleaner Professional 4.0.
It's a new version and it's updated regularly.
I like the monitoring components.

Spyware:
Spybot is very good.I would read the help files for tips.This program does have a lot of features.

The only way to find what is best for you is to trial some programs that interest you.

Hope this helps,
JB.

f-prot 3.14b or nod32 and kerio 2.15

on NT system NOD32 kernel take 8-10 mb ram and the nod32 monitor take about 4 mb

f-prot f-stopw takes 3-5mb

kerio perswf 5-6 mb

If i were you, i'd stay away from avg free , updates too far apart .. you will get infected.
AVG 7 is excellent antivirus .. worth $$$ for.

Thanx iceblue for the list !!
thanx wof, capt, jim, hylian

Do you know if its possible to use both Zone Alarm Pro and Sygate Personal Firewall Pro together?

Anything's possible!
It's never advised to run 2 firewalls as a general rule.