Those were some interesting reads, never realised how annoying Norton was. Will have a look at ZoneAlarm later on, but I think I might ditch my Norton.

Thank you all for your opinions.

I think Mcafee has a program to remove aswell, Mcafee is still a no go though.

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Personally, I find Norton easier to configure than the Windows firewall, which is why I actually prefer it. JMHO

Mcafee, now there's something I'll never use again, I found it an absolute nightmare a couple years back. I shiver just thinking about it. You'd literally have to deal with pop-ups every 5 seconds constantly, and it just bogged the system down completely, such a pain to use. I got it free when I first signed up for broadband, if they gave me it free now I doubt I'd use it.

As for Norton, I'll basically echo what everyone else has been saying, it's a resource hog. My sister had it installed on her laptop, she isn't the most tech savvy individual on the planet and her copy expired, she left it in that state, even though it was telling her it needed renewing. I can't tell you how happy I was when she called upon my services, you know I have expertise in this line of work (not). Anyway first thing I did? Said 'bye bye Norton, don't come back' lol. Installed Avira and a couple of anti-spyware progs, not that she'll have a clue what to do with them.

As for me? I use Windows built in firewall and my hardware based one built into the router. I don't use anti-virus software, the only protection I have running is SUPERAntiSpyware, I find a great deal of virus problems can be avoided by using basic commen sense whilst online. DON'T visit suspicious looking websites (use Mcafee's SiteAdvisor tool, yes I know, Mcafee! Seriously it's an excellent security app) DON'T open suspicious looking e-mails, let alone any attachments they may have. And try to download software from trusted websites only, avoid p2p altogether! And for the guys out there, I know how tempted we get to look at...something we wouldn't want our parents to catch us looking at, but there are so many of 'those' sites out there infested with this junk it's unbelievable. A man does have his needs however, just be careful.

It's all about experience though, you learn from past mistakes, mistakes I've certainly made more than a few times. I've been clean of viruses for a long time now I'm happy to report.

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I'm not Geek, I'm quarter Geek...

I especially agree with this. No protection program in the entire world can replace basic common sense.

If I were to be the only one using my computer, I would totally forgo any resident anti-virus program, and just have a firewall running. SiteAdvisor would serve as a safety net in case my common sense fails.

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Haha yeah, none of us are perfect after all. lol

Well that's the thing, I'm the only one using my computer, I become too paranoid when others are using it. Especially my sister, you know I really don't appreciate having Limewire installed and then a bunch of music being downloaded without me first agreeing to it. (Not that I would say yes anyway)

Ooh by the way, if I was to have anything else running it would probably be WinPatrol, highly recommend it.

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I'm not Geek, I'm quarter Geek...

Then that's good enough for me -



EDIT: wow - sorry to bump an old thread. Has anything on these issues changed recently?
Valis, are you still running ZoneAlarm for firewall and AVG for antivirus? (And I hope all has been well since the time you helped me with some malware a few months back...)

still running ZA for a firewall and avg for a/v and spyware. Matter of fact, my neighbors got absolutely drilled this past weekend (their son was using p2p junk) and symantec let all SORTS of junk in......i was over there easily 4 hours cleaning up the pc......in the end, after all was said and done, ripped out symantec and installed avg and ran ANOTHER scan and it found a few more trojans that were hiding.....

think they owe me one.....specifically, think they can watch little monkey boy so the wife and I can get out and see a flick or so.....

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Yeah, I'd say you're a good neighbor! Hope you get that night out with the Mrs.

I never p2p. Sometimes I'll download concerts from Rapidshare or Mega...but I always scan the RAR file before I open it.

My Norton subscription expires in two weeks and I am going to 86 the account and go with ZA for firewall. I read in another thread here that for anti-virus, its good to have several programs so I downloaded a few from links in that thread, including avg (but only 1 for firewall, of course). I noticed several posts discussing removing Norton so I should be OK with the process.

Thanks for your reply!!

I have Virginmedia,s PC Gaurd total but only use there spyware/virus scanners.

I use windows firewall.

I use Spybotsearch and Destroy.

AVG free version.

I have had to infections in two years on my OLDER PC upstairs.However the two infections happened nearly two years ago,I was new to computers back then.

Have not had any infections in nearly two years so I must be doing some thing right?

Safe Surfer.

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http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/Home/
http://www.petri.co.il/index.htm

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