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My standard reply, use a reputable AV app backed up with a couple manual scanners like malwarebytes or super antispyware that are run on a regular basis.
What would you all recommend me to look at for malwarebytes
What would you all recommend me to look at for antispyware
Would you all recommend using Windows fire wall and Microsoft security essentials with the above ?
I think a reasonable level of protection can be achieved with:
1. Run behind a hardware firewall (usually part of a router). This masks your IP number from outsiders.
2. Run a good antivirus program such as Microsoft Security Essentials. You do not have to pay to get good enough protection.
3. Run Microsoft's firewall built in to XP SP3 and newer operating systems.
4. Use and run a good free malware program such as Spybot or Malwarebytes. If you use Spybot - use the Immunize function too.
5. Never open attachments that you have some reason to suspect. Don't trust email with attachments that have been forwarded to you - even by friends - unless you KNOW they are careful before forwarding.
As I said whats good for one person may not be good for another, ...
Hence previous comment ... "best ... in what respect?" If you want your a/v program to catch anything and everything that could be suspicious, then prepare to put up with false alarms and slow performance. If you want fast scanning speed, then expect that there's a chance that something may slip by.
Quote:
... but MSE gets good reviews, and you can't beat the price.
... as long as you're a legitimate Windows user. No, it's not tops in every aspect, but overall, it's a well rounded package.
Is Microsoft Security Essentials really as good as a corporate Norton or McAfee AV program?
MSE is MS's consumer grade product. Forefront is their Enterprise product. Can you use MSE in the Enterprise? absolutely, but there is no centralized management console. Kinda like Symantec and Mcafee have separate lines of products for consumers and Enterprises.
And that's where they differ. Most of the "free" a/v programs are tailored to consumers, which gives them the edge over the big gorillas that still charge. But when you go into the Enterprise realm, where there are very little "free" choices, the big gorillas do distinguish themselves in terms of features as well as product integration of other offerings such as DLP, URL filtering, mail filtering etc. Not saying they do AV any better, but you get that efficiency from integrations, features specific to the corporate needs, and other controls that provides additional protection that A/V may not.
I like AVG free version. Been using for several years and it's been good to me, even with constant torrent downloads and other things you shouldn't do if you want a clean system.
I used AVG free version for a few years. I purchased the commercial version for my three systems and I think it was for two years. I would have liked to have stayed with the free version.
Have been using Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus for almost two years...
McAfee as supplied by Comcast was quite useful, and didn't generally take up too much computer time and resources, but NIS2009 (on another computer) was problematic. I was unhappy to see Comcast switch to McAfee, but the new NIS2010 has a feature called Silent Mode, that can be turned on automatically whenever you open one of a list of programs that you can enter, or manually for one or more hours up to a full day. In Silent Mode, it runs in the background and does not interfere with resources too badly. Both A/V programs set their priority level to "High" and you can't change it, even with an administrator account, but in the past I had to change my word processor priority to high or even "Real Time" to force McAfee to run in the background when I had important work to do. NIS2009, running on a different computer has another problem - Sonar, a component that checks to see if an executable you just created or downloaded is "safe" based on a definition that it is at least several weeks old and has numerous users. If you run a compiler, Sonar will immediately remove any executables you create, unless you turn it off permanently! On the whole, I think NIS does a better job than McAfee but they both use too much of the resources, and in addition, they may shorten the life of hard drives and even cause failure since they run scans so frequently.
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