Whats a good AV and firewall program these days?

[Blackadder]

Hi,

I require very good anti-virus and firewall programs. They can be seperate
and not bundled. Currently I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6 but its got a
dozen programs running in the background and seems like bloatware to me.

I am quite hands on and prefer to update my programs manually- so I don't
need an auto scheduler.

I used to have ZoneAlarm Pro, and AVG. Then I switched over to AVAST.
Currently I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6.

But I suspect that McAfee is doing random scans on my harddrive. McAfee also
has a lot of stuff loaded into the RAM- included scheduled activities which
I can't seem to disable.

Any recommendations?

My system is a P4 Duo 6600, Corsair 2GB DDr2, Asus p5b deluxe motherboard,
xft geforece 7800gtx and an ADSL2 Siemens connection. And XP Pro Sp2.


Cheers!

 

[Duane Arnold]

Hi,

I require very good anti-virus and firewall programs. They can be seperate
and not bundled. Currently I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6 but its got a
dozen programs running in the background and seems like bloatware to me.

I am quite hands on and prefer to update my programs manually- so I don't
need an auto scheduler.

I used to have ZoneAlarm Pro, and AVG. Then I switched over to AVAST.
Currently I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6.

But I suspect that McAfee is doing random scans on my harddrive. McAfee also
has a lot of stuff loaded into the RAM- included scheduled activities which
I can't seem to disable.

Any recommendations?

My system is a P4 Duo 6600, Corsair 2GB DDr2, Asus p5b deluxe motherboard,
xft geforece 7800gtx and an ADSL2 Siemens connection. And XP Pro Sp2.

What is this a 2.40 Ghz machine with some Gigs of RAM and your complain
about software running?

Send me your machine man and I'll load it up with SQL Server, IIS, PFW,
AV, etc etc running and more stuff, along with several other programs
running in the job trey and services, like I have running on this 700
Mhz laptop 320 megs of RAM P3 and it runs like top with Win XP Pro.

You can bet I won't be complaining about some software running on that
machine if you send to me. ;-)

However, I do like NOD32 as it's lite on the resources and fast. As for
a PFW, I won't recommend any of them to you as I really don't like any
of them, but they are a necessary.

Duane

 

[Wilf]

Hi,

I require very good anti-virus and firewall programs. They can be seperate
and not bundled. Currently I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6 but its got a
dozen programs running in the background and seems like bloatware to me.

I am quite hands on and prefer to update my programs manually- so I don't
need an auto scheduler.

I used to have ZoneAlarm Pro, and AVG. Then I switched over to AVAST.
Currently I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6.

But I suspect that McAfee is doing random scans on my harddrive. McAfee also
has a lot of stuff loaded into the RAM- included scheduled activities which
I can't seem to disable.

Any recommendations?

My system is a P4 Duo 6600, Corsair 2GB DDr2, Asus p5b deluxe motherboard,
xft geforece 7800gtx and an ADSL2 Siemens connection. And XP Pro Sp2.


Cheers!

Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) is av and firewall and much more in
one package. Having used many avs over the yars and zonealarm for a
long time I can safely say that KIS is superb and dosn't use much in the
way of machine resources. It's not cheap, but maybe you get what you
pay for?

 

[vix]

Zonealarm firewall is fine... but change Mcafee to Avira Antivir, its
totally free, lightweight and has got superb scanning abilities

 

[History Fan]

I'm using McAfee Security Centre 6 but its got a dozen programs running in

the background and seems like bloatware to me.

Calling McAfee bloatware is being kind. Its more like a 800 pound
anaconda constricting your PC.

 

[Blackadder]

a PFW, I won't recommend any of them to you as I really don't like any of
them, but they are a necessary.

Hello Duane,

Ya, I hear u on the bloat ware rant... 2gig and I bitch about a software
using 20 mb of its resources- but its just that old habits die hard.

 

[Blackadder]

Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) is av and firewall and much more in one
package. Having used many avs over the yars and zonealarm for a long time
I can safely say that KIS is superb and dosn't use much in the way of
machine resources. It's not cheap, but maybe you get what you pay for?

Thanks! That's what I'm after. Just wanted to find out from other users- as
something you dun get what u pay for.

 

[PapaBear]

I installed Avira Antivir and the program told me the trial has
expired already

 

[PapaBear]

Zonealarm firewall is fine... but change Mcafee to Avira Antivir, its
totally free, lightweight and has got superb scanning abilities

 

[Dave Cohen]

Thanks! That's what I'm after. Just wanted to find out from other users- as
something you dun get what u pay for.

The expression 'You get what you pay for' is one of those old saws
commonly quoted, sometimes true but with many exceptions.
I prefer to proceed on the premise of 'You should know what you pay for'.

In the computer software area, freeware and shareware can often compete
with and will sometimes outperform branded products. I have a number of
examples of this on my computer as I am sure many of you do also.
Dave Cohen

 

[Duane Arnold]

Hello Duane,

Ya, I hear u on the bloat ware rant... 2gig and I bitch about a software
using 20 mb of its resources- but its just that old habits die hard.

You might what to check the page file size setting on XP. It should be
set to automatically control the page file size. There was this problem
with development machines at work running 2 gig of ram and Ghz(s). The
page file size was not on auto adjustment by the O/S and there was a lot
of things open or running and the machine slowed down in some situations
to a crawl. Somethings just flat-out aborted. But that was corrected
when the page file size was taken out of manual.

Duane