Best Internet Security Suite

[jonix]

hi all,

i'm thinking of getting a full pledged internet security suite in the likes of probably norton, pc-cillin, mcafee or any other "tested" suites. was just wondering if you guys can reco a suite that delivers very good overall protection (antivirus, email scanning, anti spam, firewall, etc.) but does not hog system resources.

as of now i'm seriously looking at the PC-Cillin 2006 suite. see the PCWorld review here --> http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,118792,00.asp

 

[deepdiver2005]

As a IT Director for a 4000+ employee company, i am moving the entire company from Norton to McAfee.
Norton is over rated, and the only reason they are more famous or have a bigger market share is their marketting strategies. I have been having alot of problems with them.
Mcafee is the underdog that bites harder. The suite is stable and protects by far better.
Reviews you read in Magazines can sometimes be too superficial. Having tested all for three months solid, the winner is......... you guesses it, McAfeeeeeeeee:14:.
Yes it does cost a bit more, but arn't you worth it?

 

[Lost_At_Sea]

use McAfee!

 

[jonix]

ahhhhhh! experience is the best teacher...thanks guys. will look deeper into mcafee's suite


one more thing...opposed to getting suites, and instead by individual applications which would you reco for:

antivirus
anti spam
anti spy
personal firewall
privacy protection

 

[crlavoie]

ahhhhhh! experience is the best teacher...thanks guys. will look deeper into mcafee's suite


one more thing...opposed to getting suites, and instead by individual applications which would you reco for:

antivirus
anti spam
anti spy
personal firewall
privacy protection

With regard to your original question, I can tell you that ALL security suites have their shortcomings. NONE of them are capable of fully protecting you from everything. The reasons are far too complex for a discussion here but in summary, it has to do with the detection, mitigation and deployment cycles involved.... not to mention how quickly you act on them. Trust me, this is gospel. You can take it to the bank. Do not be fooled.

Short of becoming your own Security Expert and employing people to actively monitor 24x7, you could start by dumping microsoft. Buy a MAC with Norton or McAffee, update it once a week and run a system scan once a week and you will be "pretty well" protected but that is the best you can hope for. If you choose to keep microsoft like the rest of us suckers, just stay on top of your updates and run scans weekly. This is the 2nd best you can hope.... but it's a DISTANT 2nd place.

Deepdiver, I mean no disrespect but I would be thinking more about an early detection strategy and put more $$$ into event corelation than spending time on finding out which suite sucks less. At your level, they all suck. You need a solid platform to mange and control everything from.... but my guess is that your company, like most, does not want to spend the $$$ until it's too late. Am I right??? Gotta love it!!!

 

[Supernal]

The Computer Associates suite (I forget the name) has worked well for me in the past.

 

[AlexRodriguez]

hi all,

i'm thinking of getting a full pledged internet security suite in the likes of probably norton, pc-cillin, mcafee or any other "tested" suites. was just wondering if you guys can reco a suite that delivers very good overall protection (antivirus, email scanning, anti spam, firewall, etc.) but does not hog system resources.

as of now i'm seriously looking at the PC-Cillin 2006 suite. see the PCWorld review here --> http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,118792,00.asp

Just get a Mac.

Alex

 

[devolution365]

I'm a Sys Admin running Windows 2000 + the Norton's Corporate AntiVirus, AntiSpyware, AntiVirus for Email, Web Proxy, etc -basically everything in the suite and I've never had a problem with it. This isn't the home version you'd be running, but I've never had a problem with their home software either (on my Mom's machine). The only bad thing I can say about Norton is that their Anti-Spyware protection is not so good. But, there's free software out there for that anyway...

All antivirus software will consume system resources.

For anti-spyware: Ad-Aware and Spybot are both very good and free for home users (actually Spybot is free for businesses too, we use it in addition to Norton).

Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Just remember to update this software and run scans regularly. Spybot has an option called "Tea Timer" that will alert you whenever a system change is made. This is very useful if you don't make many changes on your system. If, while surfing, you see a window pop-up that says the computer is attempting to change your homepage (or whatever) and you didn't do it, you can "deny" the change and save yourself from having to clean up the changes later. The downside to running "Tea Timer" is that it' pops up a lot of alerts about changes when you install software or make browser changes, etc, so it can get annoying if you make a lot of changes to your computer often. If you don't want it, though, just don't turn it on. -It also has an "Immunizer" that recognizes the most common spyware and just silently blocks it all.

Anyway, if you go with either of these and you have any questions about the download, installation, or configuration, scan results, etc. PM me and I'll help you out.

Like others have said, make sure you run Windows updates as well. This will help more than anything else, especially if you have a high-speed connection. The easiest thing to do is just turn on Auto-Updates. Usually found in Start > (Settings) > Control Panel > Automatic Updates -then select "Automatic" and pick a time that you want it to download and install them. 3am is the default.

 

[Gidds]

My university requires McAffee and Norton came with my notebook, however I have abandoned both of them in favor of Grisoft's AVG freeware. It found SIX nasties on my machine that Norton AND McAffee missed despite doing the stupid updates and scans etc. My situation is a tad different because I'm not a downloader, I refuse to use MS Outlook, and I won't open emails with FW on them. I also have the MS AntiSpyware Beta version running and it seems to be ok.

 

[melle]

Gidds,

No virus scanner will ever be perfect. They all use proprietary heuristics to do their thing. Ideally You would like to run two or three at the same time, but that's impossible.

I've abandoned Norton and McAfee years ago: it is a well known fact in the Nerd-community (yes, I'm one of them) they use up too much resources of your processor. And since running a virus scanner is probably *not* your primary target...

I've used AVG for years, and it is an OK virus scanner, I used the "pro" version, which is very cheap compared to Norton and "Make-a-fee". Since two years I recommend Avast anti-virus, which is also free of charge for personal use, and affordable for professional users (erm... me, I guess). Take a look at http://www.avast.com/
For non-english speaking people it is good to know, that there are many translations.
If you buy Avast... it does a lot more than just scan for viruses.

As a firewall, I've been using Kerio Personal Firewall for a couple of years now. Very good. It has recently be acquired by Sunbelt Software (and appears not to be free any more, but is extremely affordable). Take a look at http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm

In addition Ad-Aware is very good, and also Spybot S&D.

All these packages are in the "internet security suites" that were mentioned. These guys use a lot less resources, saving processing power for posting at SB
They are a lot less expensive, and equally good... Even for large companies!

Humble Regards,

Melle :14: