security

I have been reading how good Security Plus Firewall and MS Security Esentials are. I currently have Norton's Security Suite free as a Comcast user. Although it seems to read as an improve product, I have read it uses a lot of resources and most of all can cause conflicts although I cannot be more specific. Is it a good move to uninstall Norton and install both of these free programs? Thank you

It is never easy to "prove" what the best security software solution is.
But plenty of people have their favorites and love to support them.

In the 1980's Peter Norton was doing some remarkable work regarding computer security.
His developments were acquired by Symantec in the early 1990's.
Some thought the results would be an accelerated and beneficial development of tools.
Some thought the corporate acquisition would degrade the quality of the product.

Symantec has been the corporate entity that many folks love to hate.
Some have posted in a manner that supposes that their findings "prove" that a product should be avoided.

Any time a product produces a false-positive, or botches an update, or adds additional features that "bloat" the system, the critics stream out to decry the failures.
Most of the products that are presently popular have taken their share of hits from the critics.

Personally, I have not been a fan of Symantec products since they took over from Peter Norton.
But somewhat more than 60% of folks who buy retail computers, tend to adopt and extend the included Symantec "free-trial".

And guess what…. They are served pretty well, regardless of what some may think about bloat, corporate advantage, and occasional false-positives.


Your question cannot be easily answered, and any verification offered to support an opinion today, may change with a new development tomorrow.

Regardless of what product, suite, combination of products you use, it is important to keep them updated and in-service.
Have another look, here for some expanded suggestions regarding machine and internet security.
The article is dated and may be due for re-writing, but does address the key elements you should consider.
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=98700

As for opinion…

I use MSSE on some machines… happily.
I use other product combinations on other machines… happily.

as to Security Plus Firewall … if you are referring to the CISCO product, it is for enterprise solutions, very pricey, and probably not available to you.

Security Plus Firewall? Do you have a link to this product?

I don't think people who buy new computers "choose" to have Norton's installed at all and a lot stick with it because they get used to it. Especially those who just 'want to use the computer' with no desire to look into the merits of other security software. I do agree that Norton's is software people love to hate, but probably those who had Norton's installed by default on their first PC. There is seldom any 'choice' about it. I'm sure Norton's must have a few 'deals' going with a lot of PC manufacturers. It was on my very first PC when I bought it, but not for long. Norton's is probably as good as most other security software as it gets the job done, 'Bloatware' though is a fair comment and it requires special removal software to get rid of it, except for the serious geek. There are freeware security programs around that are not bloatware and as every bit as good as Norton's. Some of it a heck of a lot better as to the way it does it's job. Far less intrusive is what I mean.

I do agree that Norton's is software people love to hate, but probably those who had Norton's installed by default on their first PC. There is seldom any 'choice' about it.

A long long time ago, before PCs connected to networks, the only way to get infected was via "sneakernet" - that is, someone hand carried an infected floppy from one machine to another, left the floppy in the drive, and rebooted. Then, McAfee was king. But soon, McAfee started adding more "features" to their program - but when computers were running with 64Mb of RAM these features were nothing more than bloat. That's about the time Peter Norton, already popular for his Norton Utilities which supplanted the original PC Tools, came out with his Norton AV and many, including yours truly, dumped the resource hog McAfee and "by choice" happily moved to Norton.

But sadly, Symantec made Norton an offer he could not refuse, and soon, SystemWorks came about - full of even more bloat than McAfee but at the time, there were no alternatives to move too, and if you attempted to uninstall SystemWorks, which had deals with many of the PC makers, you were hosed. Fortunately AVG Free came on the scene so after a format and clean install, AVG (and the new ZoneAlarm FW) became the security package of choice for many.

From there, several other alternatives came about for folks to "roll your own" security suites.

The latest version of Symantec is much better, but still a big package - and considering it costs to buy initially, and requires periodic renewals, its value is questionable considering the many able free alternatives, including Microsoft Security Essentials which continues to garner excellent reviews. I run MSE and Windows FW on all my systems now and have no regrets.

My partner runs Security Essentials and is quite happy with it.

Worth considering is the firewall scores of many security suites by the independent and highly regarded Matousec.

Norton's scored a pathetic 40% (Very Poor protection) and this company charges a yearly subscription fee(?). McAfee scored 3% (none) !

100% was only scored by Comodo (free version). Comodo has certainly come a long way over the last few years. It was a terrible piece of work when I tried it way back. It was then almost impossible to un-install, complex to configure and very intrusive. I tried it again a couple of months ago and oh boy, what a change. Not intrusive, easy to configure and un-install and has a great em scanner.

Zone Alarm Extreme scored 59% (poor) but AVG would not be a party to the test, so no idea how that would have scored. It certainly wears the 'bloatware' label now though.

I'm sticking to my Online Armor Premium (scored 97%), because I paid for it!

"Peter1" might be interested here:

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive…nge/results.php

64Mb of RAM? My first virus was Doom2Death on a 486DX2-66Mhz with 16MB of RAM. It was downloaded off a bulletin board system via dial-up. I discovered the infection because some of my programs broke and I noticed their file sizes changing. The virus attached itself to the end of a file (I think it infected .COMs if I remember right) and then modified the entry address to jump to the end of the file first, load the virus, and then jump back to the original starting address. It infected every .COM as it was accessed. Still completely unfamiliar with ever using an antivirus product, I wrote my own software to find and remove that virus. That was when I was about 12 or 13. After cleaning the files all up, I continued to play Doom2. I don't know why I mention this, but I was always pretty proud of myself over that.

Security Plus Firewall? Do you have a link to this product?

I hope this works to get you to the firewall - let me know.

http://www.pctools.com/firewall/

It is never easy to "prove" what the best security software solution is.
But plenty of people have their favorites and love to support them.

In the 1980's Peter Norton was doing some remarkable work regarding computer security.
His developments were acquired by Symantec in the early 1990's.
Some thought the results would be an accelerated and beneficial development of tools.
Some thought the corporate acquisition would degrade the quality of the product.

Symantec has been the corporate entity that many folks love to hate.
Some have posted in a manner that supposes that their findings "prove" that a product should be avoided.

Any time a product produces a false-positive, or botches an update, or adds additional features that "bloat" the system, the critics stream out to decry the failures.
Most of the products that are presently popular have taken their share of hits from the critics.

Personally, I have not been a fan of Symantec products since they took over from Peter Norton.
But somewhat more than 60% of folks who buy retail computers, tend to adopt and extend the included Symantec "free-trial".

And guess what…. They are served pretty well, regardless of what some may think about bloat, corporate advantage, and occasional false-positives.


Your question cannot be easily answered, and any verification offered to support an opinion today, may change with a new development tomorrow.

Regardless of what product, suite, combination of products you use, it is important to keep them updated and in-service.
Have another look, here for some expanded suggestions regarding machine and internet security.
The article is dated and may be due for re-writing, but does address the key elements you should consider.
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=98700

As for opinion…

I use MSSE on some machines… happily.
I use other product combinations on other machines… happily.

as to Security Plus Firewall … if you are referring to the CISCO product, it is for enterprise solutions, very pricey, and probably not available to you.

>>I was referring to http://www.pctools.com/firewall/
What do you think of it? I was thinking of using this with MSSE and the malware anti malware program instaed of Norton.

I do agree that Norton's is software people love to hate, but probably those who had Norton's installed by default on their first PC. There is seldom any 'choice' about it.

A long long time ago, before PCs connected to networks, the only way to get infected was via "sneakernet" - that is, someone hand carried an infected floppy from one machine to another, left the floppy in the drive, and rebooted. Then, McAfee was king. But soon, McAfee started adding more "features" to their program - but when computers were running with 64Mb of RAM these features were nothing more than bloat. That's about the time Peter Norton, already popular for his Norton Utilities which supplanted the original PC Tools, came out with his Norton AV and many, including yours truly, dumped the resource hog McAfee and "by choice" happily moved to Norton.

But sadly, Symantec made Norton an offer he could not refuse, and soon, SystemWorks came about - full of even more bloat than McAfee but at the time, there were no alternatives to move too, and if you attempted to uninstall SystemWorks, which had deals with many of the PC makers, you were hosed. Fortunately AVG Free came on the scene so after a format and clean install, AVG (and the new ZoneAlarm FW) became the security package of choice for many.

From there, several other alternatives came about for folks to "roll your own" security suites.

The latest version of Symantec is much better, but still a big package - and considering it costs to buy initially, and requires periodic renewals, its value is questionable considering the many able free alternatives, including Microsoft Security Essentials which continues to garner excellent reviews. I run MSE and Windows FW on all my systems now and have no regrets.

>>Do you also use an anti spware program, or are those two enough?

I've never used PCTools Firewall, don't know what it is based on, and haven't followed any reviews that support it. It may be a decent product. Others have recommended Comodo, Online Armor, and Zone Alarm. I still use Zone Alarm, after all these years, but am tempted to try the "apparently better" Comodo for my XP machines. For Vista/Win7 I'm tending toward MSSE and the native Windows Firewall. These are strictly "opinions and preferences" on my part. For your own use, it is a matter of owner/user preference and choice. If you do decide to use the PCTools product, let us know how it worked out for you. Best Regards

Do you also use an anti spware program, or are those two enough?

MSE is an anti-malware program and as such, looks for spyware too. In fact, it will disable Windows Defender if running, during when installed.

As noted here, it has been certified by the ICSA and VB100 labs.