What Security Software do you Recommend?

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I use Avast antivirus and found it to be the best

Most successful software
serach-and-destroy [broken link removed] has been the only software to successfully detect blocks and removes spyware, adware, pop-ups. It is the only one which could defend my computer from hijackers. No other software could do it. It's simply great.

A great help
As a student I was always worried regarding my presentation files getting corrupt.
Re-doing all my files was always an extra work for me. But After installing serach-and-destroy [broken link removed] all the problems regarding my pc were solved. Now I am least worried about trojan invading my pc. This software has helped me to a great extend to make my pc spyware free.

Leo,
thanks for all your good advice. In this summary, you don't say anything about "Registry Scan software to Repair Process Errors". I've seen them advertised here and there, and also on your website. I have recently had a virus attack, and Kaspersky personnel suggested that it (the virus) might have changed the registry. Fortunately, with their help, the virus was finally identified and eliminated without having to recourse to working at the regisrty. I know from your previous comments that if something is advertised on your site, it does not mean that you recommend it. Fine, but if you say nothing about registry scan and repair softwares, does it mean you do NOT recommend them, and of course my main question is: what do they do?
Thanks in particular for your advice concerning backup. I retired recently, and realized that at work our IS department had taken care of that for us, ... Now, I have to take care of myself. If it was not for your excellent newsletter, I would be lost!
A million thanks (sorry to be so long)

This happened the last time, you never answered me! Norton told us Cyber defender are "Hackers' causing computers to become well, screwed up? Question: I have CA or Ca security for Anti-virus&Spyware only as I could not get Norton again, bec/ I cannot use credit card on comp/ They gave me free 3 mo's w/ ACER then another 3 when CyberD messed me up!"Why did 17 then 42 pages show up STACKED w/ connecting at top of empty page one by one until it finally stopped beeping? Will this happen again/was it a "glitch" cause it happened once before a while ago,long time ago/ Does this happen only w/ dial-up bec/ I cannot get DSL/Answer me please or I'll go away, it is a sad thing to be ignored and ran all over the place!

Leo, Your sight is so informative, I've written down AVAST& MicrosoftDefender/Firewall& Serach-and Desroy[broken link removed??]means what? Are those all I really need?WindowsVista IS part of Vista, but are they free too? Is AVAST[free] better, your opinion only? Please, why did those empty pages STACK up after leaving site,kept r-clicking to "close" until they ALL did, just tell me that if you cannot tell me the others until another time, you're intellegent AND knowledgeable not always a duo, you know!

I have been using Norton AntiVirus since Symantec bought IBM's AntiVirus program. At the time, IBM's software and research facility for AntiVirus software seemed to have the best credibility I could find.

My firm had a McAfee site license, but I found some items that McAfee would not catch (on floppies) would be blocked and removed by Norton (NAV).

The 2009 version of NAV seems to have gotten many things right. Symantec has shrunk the side effects of NAV - boot up is only marginally slower after NAV is installed; scans seem to truly run in the background, and don't drag down other processes that are running; the auto update feature has two modes, and neither have a negative impact on other programs; web browsing is not much slower than before NAV is installed.

I used to agree with Leo's assertion about security suites. But after reading PC Magazine's thorough review (Jan 2009) of Norton Internet Security, it seems that the anti-spyware portion of NAV is as effective as any of the others. NAV is the anti-virus & anti-spyware portion of NIS.

Here's the best part of Norton - SystemWorks Std. Ed. includes NAV as well as Norton Utilities.

I have never had any success with Ad-Aware or SpyBot S&D. In clearing out spyware from others' PCs, I've used SpySweeper to much success.

In any case, I have historically always recommended NAV for the best anti-virus protection, despite some installation & upgrade problems with this software, as well as the performance hits.

Now, with the 2009 version, the performance hits have been minimized.

It would be great to find free security apps, as there are many fantastic free apps out there. But when it comes to security, free does not seem good enough for me.

Now, I will wait for the newest version to be offered for free or close to it. I have seen NAV 2009 offered for free when buying tax software, NIS 2009 and Norton 360 for under $20, but not yet for NSW 2009.

AVG is pretty good and it goes well with a peeson on a tight budget.

There are 3 good free anti-virus products:-
AVG, Avast and Avira. Of these three AVG has the biggest performance hit so I prefer Avira or Avast, especially on low powered machines.

I just uninstalled AVG and installed Avast (free for personal computers). AVG did not pick up the virus software that Avast found. It seems to do a better job and its FREE!
Janice

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