How do I pick the right tools to protect my system?

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Great answers leo ;)
I personally Use Avast Anti Virus, its updated twice Daily with new virus definintions, it Scans Real Time while downloading files, and It scans Instant Messaging programs, its a Web Sheild so checks each website for possible infections, For Example, The other Day it blocked a Drive By Download for me, coming from that web address!
And best of all, its free, Completly!
IT also uses VERY little system rescources, In fact, at the moment Windows Vista and XP both say it is using 2% CPU and 20MB of Ram, compared to Anti Virus like McAfee or Noton which can use Upwards of 200MB Ram.
Another great feature is it scans the memory and open processes for infections before running a Virus Scan, what this means, is that if a virus is running in the background, and avast finds it, It will End the Running Process, PLUS block that process from running (so It can restart itself like most do) then once the Virus Scan of the system completes, it, Based on user preference, deals appropriatly with the infection, So if the user asks avast to delete it, there is no issues with having to Restart the computer into safe mode, just so the virus doesnt run,and can be safely removed, because avast unlike any other Anti Virus, has blocked and stopped the virus before it did the scan.
I fully recommened to ANYONE looking for an Anti Virus program to Try
Awils Avast Anti Virus
Its free, Its reliable, its not a hog, and its powerful!

I will second Avast.

I had been using McAfee, my employers internal anti-virus solution. Like Leo's past experience, McAfee is free to me My employer has a license that lets employee's use it at home. I stopped using it six months or so ago because the latest version was way too bloated and slowed up my computer.

Good luck.

Not to turn this into a Pro Avast page, but I have had decent luck with them as well. AVG is also ok, though not as reliable I think. I would strongly advise against Macafee and Norton/ Symanetc. They hog system resources, lead to crashes, and in my experience, are always a day late and a dollar short when it comes to catching viruses. I recently did a virus sweep of a neighbors computer. He had faithfully used an updated Macafee for several years. I removed it, used Avast, and found about 200 or so infected files. Remember folks, if your University or Employer gives you an anti-virus package for free, but it doesn't work, then you haven't save time or money!

Another solid piece of advice that Leo often mentions is to have MORE than one anti-virus program. They won't all catch everything. If you buy a major program, having avg or avast around to get a second opinion once in a while can save a lot of headaches. Just don't run them all at the same time!

Well, all or nothing eh?

I used to be an avid McAfee fan back in the day. They were
the lean product Symantec could only once wish they were.
Well, unfortunately now McAfee's suite is just as bloated as
Symantec (Norton).

I tried a few others, Trend Micro, Sophos, AVG and so on.
Most were decent and fairly lean. Props to AVG for being free
by the way. Then someone turned me onto Avast. This is what I
recommend to friends, family and coworkers. Though the
default skin is a bit akward, the program itself is as lean
as any of the latter mentioned. Give it a try!

One thing I would recommend _against_ would be using your favorite search engine as your sole source. A search for "remove spyware", for example, will typically give you numerous hits for rogue software which masquerades as anti-spyware, but which is actually spyware (or worse) itself.

It's amazing how many computers come in to our shop for cleanup which are infested by these programs, because the person tried cleaning up himself without knowing any better.

Well, I use AVG Anitvirus Free Edition. It scans in real time. It always has some Defintion Files to download daily (means the Company is constantly working). I have never had any problems though & I believe in a Complete reformat of the Hard Disk in case you get infected. AVG Anitvirus is really low on resources & runs happily even with 256MB RAM with XP Pro SP2 installed.

About Spyware, I am not much bothered because I know my Browsing Habits (and will surely identify if some spyware has struck on me) & am pretty much an advanced User to completely reformat the System from scratch. Moreover I am behind a NAT router, so feel pretty much safe. But I run ZoneAlarm Firewall & it does its job well (though the Free Edition does not allow you to configure Individual Ports).

Rest, MS products are really great and I believe in sticking to the Original Versions (Unpirated ones) but in my opinion, they are pricey. You have a lot of Free options if you scour the Internet which work equally well as the professional ones but yes, you must have the skills to know how they are performing.

Ravi.

It's unanimous - Avast rules! As for Windows Defender, it's absolutely worthless, just like Windows firewall, or any of the rest of Microsoft's junk. Never install anything that phones home!

I use AVG, ZoneAlarm Firewall, AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy. All free versions. I also have MS Defender installed (as it was free) and still find that AdAware & Spybot pick up odd things that Defender misses.

Another thing everyone needs to do to keep their system secure is to download the latest windows updates related to security every month so that their systems are not exposed to known vulnerabilities.

I have used several antivirus and antispyware apps over the past several years - both full time use in home and office as well as in the field cleaning up over a thousand infected pc's. In my opinion I have found that AVG anti-virus gives the best combination of both capability and simplicity for the end user as far as antivirus goes. I think avast is a great product and use it personally at home, but I won't use it for clients because it is not as simple to explain and set up for the clients - this leads to more of my time being used for support. I would say that avast and avg are very close in their abilities to clean up infected systems. Having tried both on a large number of infected systems, (I tried avg then avast, or avast and then avg) I would say it was pretty rare when one would pick up a virus that the other did not see.

Do not install more than one anti-virus at a time unless you know how to disable one of them completely and only activate it for a manual scan. Having more than one AV running at a time can lead to problems.

As far as anti-spyware, I rely on Webroot Anti-Spyware (not the version with Antivirus in it) as well as PCTools Spyware Doctor. They both seem to be about equal in their abilities. The only thing I do not like about webroot is that you cannot program the time when it will do it's updates - it does cause the system to slow down quite a bit for a minute or so when it is doing its updates and I would prefer to program it to update at night just before it scans. Other than that, it is a great program and I recommend it to clients.
I have used spybot search and destroy and ad-aware and I feel they are pretty good programs but that they do not get anywhere near removing all infections. Generally I have found that spybot removes some, ad-aware will remove some more, but if you really want to clean the system well I would use webroot and/or pctools. Also, if you have been infected by the WinAntivirus, etc programs that give constant popups telling you that you are infected and asking for you to buy their software you can get rid of that for free with a good little program called "Rogue Remover".

Firewalls - OK, number one, if you are using DSL or cable or other broadband fast internet connection you NEED (URGENTLY NEED) to have a router installed between a cable/dsl box and your pc. (some isp's provide a combo modem/router). If you don't have the router, then your PC is CONSTANTLY UNDER ATTACK. Your system is being scanned every day by probably dozens of hackers looking for a way to break into your system to use it for criminal purposes. A hardware firewall such as is found in some routers is some protection, but most professionals will argue for LEVELS of protection in depth. So go for the hardware, and software as well. Number two, an extra software firewall is a very good idea as well. PCTools offers a free one, and so does Zone Alarm. Just beware, you do not want to block everything that pops up saying it is trying to connect to the internet. STOP, read the message and find out what is trying to connect and then go to google or yahoo and search on that progam name - find out what it is before you block it. Be careful with firewalls becuase you can really mess up the normal operations of your system if you are not careful.

If you have a very bad infection that these products will not clean, you will need to back up your data files, and then completely wipe your system and reinstall everything.

Thanks Leo, for this great, informative article.

I hope this has been helpful for you.
Rob Cox, Owner
Cox network & PC Services

One more thing, since this article is under the heading of Malware Prevention. Stay off of sites with adult or pirate content, and you will avoid a lot of the hassles.

One other thing you can do is turn off the preview pane in your email program if you use a program to get your email.

Lastly, many of the drive by download attacks and script attacks only work on Internet Explorer. Download firefox and use it instead for most of your web surfing.

Rob Cox

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