Firewall and Anti-virus Recommendations

[Razor Ramon]

No. Why would I when the freeware versions are less bloated and do exactly what I want?

[Netwurked]

ClamWin is open source which means free! It is only gonna get bigger!

Right now the big downfall is that it doesn't support real time file protection which means you have to manually scan to detect virus's but that should be fixed in the next release hopefully. Other than that imo it is all you need. There is no need to spend $ on anti-virus software unless your data is critical. ClamWin will do just fine!

Same with firewalls. XP SP2 is more than enough.

[Nick]

The Kaspersky suite is still the best overall solution I've tried, but it is showing signs of becoming bloated. I'm willing to use NOD32, but I recommend Kaspersky as the all-in-one package. I love how it pauses and automatically restarts antivirus protection when I run certain games.

[Dyne]

for antivirus i use Avast!

for firewall i use the included Windows firewall in Vista and the hardware one all routers have. you should not realistically need any more than this.

[ChaoofNee]

Yeah, but what if I want to block applications from accessing the internet? What if I want a flag to be raised when something I don't want touching the 'net decides to call home?

Kerio's ability to do that recently stopped. It made me miss Sygate.

[MarkRyan]

I use Avira because it's free and my cousin recommended it. My only complaint so far is that it asks you to buy the full version every time it updates, which is once a day, but it's a small price to pay for an anti-virus that I can't even tell is running (as in, uses no resources).

At work we use Symantec which I suggest you steer fucking clear of.

[Dyne]

Symantic or Nortin? they're two different apps. the corporate version of Symantic isn't so bad, while Norton flat out sucks balls.

although i use Avast!, i very rarely run it. i'm not dumb enough to get infected files in the first place and most AV products only support virii that have been found already and documented. not new shit. kind of, after the fact protection.

[Six]

Yeah, but what if I want to block applications from accessing the internet? What if I want a flag to be raised when something I don't want touching the 'net decides to call home?

Kerio's ability to do that recently stopped. It made me miss Sygate.

Maybe you should update/reinstall Kerio. The trial version does exactly what I want it to (let me decide what gets in and out) and does it free of charge.

Also, Kerio and AVG for me. I have access to Norton thanks to the Univ. but I wouldn't put that POS on any machine of mine.

[Dyne]

doesn't Windows Security Center always pop up something when a new app is trying to access the internet anyway? or at least ask you the first time it tries and you can override it or not. so i don't see what Chao's complaint is.

[Gymkata]

Throwin one up for Avast!/ Zone alarm combo. (us black people always gotta reprezent)