Personal PC Security

[Digoy]

A/V + Firewall=Norton Internet Security
Spyware= Spysweeper+ Spyware Blaster
NIS and SS are about $25 each on newegg and SPyware Blaster is free. Great security set up if you ask me. I would never risk my computer's integrity with a freeware-only solution.

[Spyder32]

Digoy: Why would it be a risk? There are quiiite a few good freeware security applications out there, some of them I'd take over buying a product. Just because they are free doesn't mean that it presents a "risk" of sorts to your system, no?

By the way, I agree with you somewhat (just so you know). I have used purchased software for my system aswell as downloaded software. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't nessacarily put your computer "at risk".

[nihil]

Spyder32 I believe that you are right. When you select a product you look at what it does not what it costs

In quite a few cases you find that the only difference between the pay for and free versions is that the pay for one supports networking and remote administration, and has full product support.

You also need to look at the business model of the supplier. It is very different selling bulk licences to outfits with hundreds if not thousands of seats, and trying to sell low cost software to thousands of individuals.

It is also much cheaper to support corporate customers as they will have resident IT staff who will filter out a lot of the simple problems.

[Spyder32]

Correct, I believe that full product support and perhaps the ability for instant patches/updates/etc being present are a few of the benefits of it, but regardless.. what should be looked at is what does the application do and how well does it perform? Because cost or no cost, if it doesn't suit my needs (being the end user) then I simply won't buy it or download it.. it's that simple.

[rcgreen]

Strict browser settings will eliminate most of the
problems you will encounter. This is more important
than a firewall, since you will invariably allow your browser
to go through the firewall to access the net.

http://www.jfitz.com/tips/ie_security_config.html

[morganlefay]

I would never risk my computer's integrity with a freeware-only solution.

I dont understand this statement....what is there to risk???

I have recently worked on a home pc brought to me with Norton Security Suite on it.....which became infected with something....because improper configuration and user ignorance.............stopped getting its updates...in sept.

The machine was full of malware.....

So you are saying...if I use free solutions...I am at risk???

Maybe I know how to USE CONFIGURE and MONITOR the software...free or not

MLF

[mmkhan]

well everyone has forgotten to apply security patches to there system

[morganlefay]

well everyone has forgotten to apply security patches to there system

You know some people just dont know.....or care that much about it
As long as they get thier email...and can surf the net....who needs updates.


Only when the machine starts to slow down...or gets umteen pop ups ....do they then try and do something about it.

End user education is the key here.

My kids know more about computers, updates, surfing habits, email\spam, history, cookies and temp files....them most adults

Thats cause they have a very smart mommy

MLF

[brokencrow]

As long as they get thier email...and can surf the net....who needs updates.

Funny you mention that. My landlord's a real estate appraiser who used to argue he didn't need to do updates because he was on a dialup connection and was somehow immune. One day, it all came tumbling down.

Free stuff? Free stuff is great and makes me very secure. Let me count the ways:

Spybot
Ad-Aware
HijackThis
Ccleaner
IP Cop
Smoothwall
iPIG
Hamachi
Ubuntu
Panda's online scan
Mozilla, too

Can't hardly get away from the free stuff. There's dozens more, don't have the time...

[Zaldy]

Originally posted here by Anglachel17
AO: I was hoping to get an idea of the kind of measures must of you guys take for the security of your own comps: AV, firewalls, etc. what are your favoured combos

Aloha

this is what I use:
brains

Mozilla Firefox 1.5

Antivir Personal Edition v7 (Beta, but works very well)

D-Link DI-524 wireless router
* NAT turned on
* SPI turned on
* 192-bit WPA (AES) encryption
* MAC address filtering

+ Windows firewall (because it doesn't use much resources anyway)

Hijackthis from time to time