New Virus Protection

Hi guys, I currently run McAfee Security Centre and I believe its partly responsible for me having such a slow system. I have several questions (sorry to be greedy!!) 1. What can I replace McAfee with> I currently have Spybot Search and Destroy running, and have also downloaded the free AVG Anti Spyware 7.5 - not running realtime protection. Also have Spyware Blaster installed. 2. Shall I stop running windows firewall? 3. After increasing my RAM from 512MB to 2 GB, I see no difference in running speeds…..should I see a difference? Steve.

You should definitely see a difference going from 512Mb to 2Gb. Increasing RAM is generally considered, by far, the best bang for the buck in terms of boosting performance - up to a point. You get the most bang up to 1Gb, and a smaller boost up to 2Gb. Beyond 2Gb and the gains would be insignificant in most scenarios. Other common bottlenecks include weak graphics and low hard disk space. If you are running on-board graphics, that would be an issue.

And then there's spyware - a very common cause of lousy performance. McAfee is a great security suite, but is a resource hog and if you are going to stop using that, you need to assemble a new complete arsenal of tools, including anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, as a minimum. Do NOT connect to the Internet without a firewall - ever! Windows Firewall is not the best, but by far is MUCH better than nothing. Here's a link to my canned text on Cleaning Out Malware that may be of some use for cleaning out your system, and for building your own security suite.

EDIT Sorry Digerati, this one took me too long time to type!
Hi steveinhants,

2Gb of RAM sounds good to me and if the rest of your kit is up to date with a reasonably fast processor, and XP set up correctly you should have a flying machine!

Speed is of course relative and its difficult, as a rule for folks to be objective, The number of people that use a stopwatch to assess for example the bootup time accurately, are few and far between!

A full security suite, that includes:
anti virus
anti spyware
anti spam
parental controls etc
Bi-directional firewall
or similar functionality can often take up quite a bit of the machine's resources, however a well specified and correctly set up machine should be able to cope.

Quite a few experts prefer to have separate protection products that tend to have a smaller footprint than a Security Suite. (me included)
If your McAfee includes a bi directional firewall then you definitely want the Windows one switched off.
There are more security products available than you can shake a stick at and I guess you might have lots of folks replying recommending their favourite products.
Remember more sometimes is not good…. some rules of thumb for you:

1 Only have one anti virus active and running in memory (More than one quarrel and create mega problems)
2 Only have one software firewall active (Its OK to be behind a hardware firewall as well, like the one thats in a lot of routers)
3 Run your scans regularly and don't let a day go by without downloading the latest updates.
4 Keep Windows patched and ALL critical Updates installed immediately upon issue.
5 Don't rely too much on either hardware or software for protection, it's the guy in the chair operating the computer that is usually the weakest link….. never click on links in email, or open attachments unless you have sniffed around them like an old prairie dog!
In Outlook Express if you have your email preview on, then you are opening the email…You know what Michael Caine said!
6 Don't regularly surf using an Administrator account if you can help it.
7 If you click on cool things like neat free emoticons, weather reports and other free stuff, think twice …why is it free? there is a lot of good free stuff about but some is definitely not good and has a lot of "little friends" tagging along with it.
8 Be conservative where you go, Peer to Peer file downloads are very popular…some of the downloads are actually legal and above board, but a lot are not! A lot of malware can arrive in a P2P download.
9 Bad sites are abundant, frequented by bad people, who have bad habits…..need I say more.

Sorry this is beginning to sound like the 10 commandments so I will stop now, But here are some good sources of information for you:
http://forums.whatthetech.com/HijackThis_L…emoval_f27.html
have a look at the malware expert's closing speeches, once they have finished cleaning a computer.
http://forums.whatthetech.com/Help_My_comp…low_t74560.html
This will give you important information and a lot of recommendations
and for a report on your system you could go here:
http://pcpitstop.com/
you will need to register (free) and accept an ActiveX that is generally considered safe from that site. If you do a full test you will get a good report on what to do. The scan only takes a few minutes, Post back here with the Tech Express link if you need any help in following the recommendations.
Regards
paws

EDIT Sorry Digerati, this one took me too long time to type!

lol - that's what canned texts are for!!!

Thanks to you both for an extremely fast and detailed reply - I'm enjoying learning about my system at long last!! I have just finished running PC Pitstop, and it reports that most of my system is good - just needed to defrag and reduce system restore memory. I'll do this very shortly. If I may change the subject very slightly…. The reason I posted was because it takes between 5mins and 5mins 30 secs from hitting the power button to being able to 'use my computer', i.e. the net or other programs. I was running the Code Stuff Starter from a link on this site and noticed that when I googled some of the 'services', namely those with SVCHOST. in them, that some sites returned spyware warnings whilst others stated that these programs/files were essential…..could you please help me with this. An example is the 'Help and Support - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs Sorry to be a pain!! Steve.

Svchost, which is short for "service host", is a core part of the operating system that provides support to many of the required services that are basic to Windows. Svhost provides an avenue through which many Windows and some third-party utilities communicate to the Internet. Updaters like google updater, Real Media updater, QuickTime updater, etc. frequently access the internet via instances of Svchost.exe. Many such "updaters" are not necessary, can contribute to boot load time, and can be safely disabled via MSCONFIG. It is not uncommon to have 3 - 5 instances of Svchost.exe running active at the same time. You can cut that down a bit by disabling StartUp items (take another look at your Pit Test - Windows Results - items with blue/purple background to get a start on what can be disabled.)