Computer Protection - Pinned Topics

First off I love this site and you guys have helped me immensely. I think a post detailing the type of protection every computer should have (i.e. antivirus, firewall, etc) would be very valuable. In addition to the type of software needed, you could also rank your favorite software for each protection category. Then each piece of software could have a link to the best/safest place to download it (if it's free) or to the manuf site if its paid so we could learn more about it. If you really want to dig deep, then for each piece of software you recommend, you create a post (hyperlink it) detailing the appropriate settings you should have. Now of course this could be tricky bc some software can do multiple things, but I bet just having a post from pros like you would be very valuable and tons of people would read it

I think a post detailing the type of protection every computer should have (i.e. antivirus, firewall, etc)

For windows 7 the firewall is fine and MSE is the top tech recommend here as an antivirus. That's all the protection you need.

For windows 8 the firewall is fine and windows defender is now an anti-virus, so you need nothing except keeping defender updated (auto is best).

As a needed update since my last post:

 

MSE is not longer "top notch" and would consider Avast anti-virus  for that title now.

 

For W8, the inbuilt Defender and adding Malwarebytes as another layer of protection is a wise choice. The pro. version of Malwarebytes is highly recommended as is the pro. version of Avast if not using IE8.