security

I asked if Norton's security suite would provide better protection than Win 8 Defender and native firewall I use now.. Norton is free because I have Comcast if I choose to use it..It seems a lot of users are burned by the old Norton which was a resource hog and the dislike has carried over.. I was told nothing from MS would really do the job and Norton is no good.. I was advised to use AVG Security Suite, but I have read less than good news about it and would have to buy the suite to get the firewall.. I also have MBAM and a router. I have read too many ratings and I kow thee are many opinions out there but I have usually got the right answer here.

Well for me there are only 2 choices, surprisingly MSE is one, when that first came out it got great reviews, and many comments about how well it worked with Windows 7, (no idea about Windows 8 though), but I had heard a few comments about it having stepped back in the ratings the last I heard, but the one I use 90% of the time is Avast, ever since I found it way back in the early days of me being into getting help for myself, before I knew anything about such things, and I've never had a problem with it, but everyone has their favourite, but this is mine, no single piece of protection can catch everything, but Avast with mbam and a router there's not much more you can do IMO, and the windows firewall will still add more cover, but the league table of the best in this field is forever changing, but Avast has been in there for as long as I can remember, hope this helps a bit.

I use MSE on Windows 7 and the built in Defender on Windows 8, along with MBAM Pro (on both). Works great for me and no problems. I have developed a strong aversion to Norton, McAfee or AVG. Avast was pretty good but even it had an adverse impact on performance many times.

I wish I could involve one more piece of protection like Sandboxie or a VM but they have proven too hard for me. I even looked into a VPN and Tor. I know I went too far. With Sandboxie + a VM I still cannot even conceive of how my email programs can run with either and the idea of losing things because one did not run them properly is not enticing. I am embarrassed to admit that when I am not home I bring my external drive in case I need to recover an image of the system and also my router for that little extra protection. Minor paranoia -maybe. Thank you for your ideas, they are appreciated.

The problem with protection is how much is too much ?
They could end up tripping over each other if your not careful, and some can slow you down, as above, fortunately Avast has rarely let me down like that, but sometimes for whatever reason a piece of software just wont play nice on a specific system(s), so it's not only true of protection for this, but when you encounter such a situation you are sometimes forced to use an alternate piece of software.

There are a couple of extra bit's I use, they work separately from the other tools, Trusteer Rapport is one, heavily promoted and even demanded by some banks before allowing you online access to your account, my best understanding is once you access a page in it's data base it locks the page down in a protected environment, which stops any other processes accessing the data input on that site, but not all banks use this yet, but many do.

The other is Iconix, this helps identify fake emails, so when you get an email from x source, claiming to be your bank, or PayPal etc, this checks it's data base to see if it is from a legit source, if it is it ticks the email as ok, if not it takes steps to warn or protect you, it's changed since I last used it, it appears to simply remove such mails known to be bad, I used it a lot when I first found it, but in the latter years of using it I found it slowed down surfing, so I stopped using it, but it's free to the user, and the amount of company's who subscribe to this service is constantly growing, of course it can't protect\warn against those company's not subscribing to it, but it covers many of the main ones people use such as eBay etc, so you could have a look at that if you want.

I definitely agree that too much can cause trouble. I will certainly look up the two referrals, especially regarding banking. Thank you very much.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you

>>I hear you, Rich.

I was about to get Sandboxie and found out there are issues with Win 8. I know Comodo's browser has it but don't want to go there so will stay as I am until there is a compatibility established with SBy and Win 8

Pattie you do not need to add any antivirus (especially Nortons) to W8

Unlike in W7, Defender in W8 is now also an antivirus and auto-updates virus/malware definitions.
I use W8 in my laptop and wouldn't think of adding another antivirus or firewall to it.

Windows operating systems are becoming increasingly out-of-the-box simple and more secure, without adding anything.
I would add Malwarebytes though as a backup scanner.

Cheers,
Lee

Lee, you mean Peter not Pattie, right?????

Lee, you mean Peter not Pattie, right?????

Ok, shoot me Peter. Sorry, but a senior's moment there

Lee, you mean Peter not Pattie, right?????

Ok, shoot me Peter. Sorry, but a senior's moment there

>no problem anywhere.
Actually I am using the combination to you refer to, Lee.

I am thinking of using Puppy or Mint in a stick - the only issue is my wife's email which is the ISP"s POP 3. Mine is web based.
Unless I can find a work around for her she will be stuck if not at home using the stick.
I was considering the stick as although it is not virtual it is seldom looked at and doesn't get into my OS unless I want it to.

Don't worry about senior moments 'cause there comes a point when you don't want to know what's going on anyway.