Larian Studios Forums General Chat Chat (Anything) Computer Protection

At the moment I got a program called 'BullGuard' guarding my computer. It's an Anti-virus, Firewall, Spamfilter and Back-up Program all-in-one, but it's a trial of 90 days which came with my computer, and it expires in two weeks. So I wonder which programs you would sugest to use(preferably free)? I got a copie of Microsoft's Antivirus 2004(IIRC, I'm not completly sure), is this a good Anti-virus or are there better ones avaible for free?
And do I need other programs then a Firewall and Antivirus, or are those two enough for protection?

Thanks in advance

Isorun

I am not familiar with BullGuard or MS' anti-virus program.
Is MS still providing updates for that version of the program? If you can not get updates, replace it, since something that old (if you recall the year correctly) will miss a lot of newer exploits.


freeware security programs

All free

for spyware:
Spybot Search and Destroy
Lavasoft Adaware

firewall:
Sygate

antivirus:
AVG

Thanks, both of you.
I had never heard of BullGuard before, and because of the all-in-one function I was pretty happy about it, but it already happend a few times that when I shut down the computer I get the message that BullGuard isn't reacting, but when I open it, it works just fine. Really weird, but with those other programs, I can just uninstall BullGuard and install the new ones.

The best protection is BRAIN.EXE . I mean your brain inside your head.

If youbuild some rules and consequently apply them, you should have very few problems, I believe.

Rules like "don't open every e-mail attachment, no matter where it comes from and especially if you never asked someone to send attachments to you".

I never had any real problems in the last time because of this.

And of course I have a anti-virus program, a firewall and Ad-aware plus Spybot. I let them run on demand, and take the newest updates from their servers.

This is one of my "rules". <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

I find a kevlar outer case works best, with titanium tipped fans!

I use Zone Alarm as a firewall - seems to do the job, and AVG anti-spyware, or Spybot depending on my mood- have both installed.

I use mcafee for virus - I tried the free version of AVG and found that it didn't find a lot of things that mcafee did.

In a recent test of Virus Scanners in a magazine, it was shown that Norton still ships an CD-ROM with a bootable DOS system - with signatures from the turn of the Millennium.
And no way to update them.

I guess they've just forgotten it.

take a look at this

There's a bookmark if ever there was one! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Now that is an excellent site to have. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Can you imagine if that site was actually full of viruses? That would be a crapload of havoc! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

It doesn't have my favorite firewall, but it is a handy site otherwise.

and whatever you do "STAY AWAY" from Comodo, I tried that once at work and shees does that take up some memory blimey the whole system nearly stopped <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" />

I had exactly the same problem with the current Flash 9 plugin by Adobe/Macromedia.

Except that it did eat ALL of the memory, even those normally occupied by drivers or so.

My screen just went dark. I had to restart the whole system.

It took some time until I found out that it was just the plugin in conjunction with flash-based sites.

You still running 98SE Al?
Cause that would be the problem me thinks :scratches head:

Yes.

And what's worse : The Adobe web site says it is for Win98SE, too ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/exclamation.gif" alt="" />

My guess is that they've just tested it (in QA) entirely with xp machines ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />

Mea, what was your experience with Comodo? Did it start off okay and then eat up resources, or was it ravenous right from the start? I've just started experimenting with firewalls (preferably free ones!) after using Sygate for several years. Wanted something a bit newer... but I've kept the old Sygate installation file, just in case.

So far, my Comodo installation has been fine, although I'm not entirely happy with it. But it's only been up for about a week. Don't see a lot good said about any of the firewalls these days, free or paid versions, and ZoneAlarm in particular (which I didn't much like when I tried it many years ago) has been getting quite a bit of flack.

On the other hand, with the myriad computer configurations out there I suppose it's not surprising that even the best software is loved by some and hated by others.

If anyone has other firewall suggestions, btw, I'd be happy to hear them.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

What kind of flack has ZoneAlarm been getting? I admit that I am a bit out of the loop with the program, since I have not used it since my old computer.

I've used ZoneAlarm for over 6 months now since I first got the internet in at home.

I've never noticed anything out of the ordinary regarding memory usage - and it seems to be protecting my PC completely. Of course I kind of suspect that the 30-40 or so 'hack attempts' I get a day are probably just bull, made up by the program to show me its protecting me. I'm a cynic, I know. I briefly changed my firewall to another free one, and didn't get any hack attempts, but I changed back out of fear that maybe they were real hacks, and this firewall didn't stop them - plus it wasn't as nice looking as zonealarm. Anyway - you can turn off all the hack messages, so thats fine.

Its very easy to manage all the programs that want to access the internet, recognising programs that have 'changed' and asks again if you want to allow it access.

Only thing I don't like is when I update it, I have to allow all the programs access again - it should retain that info.

What ever you do, don't trust those "Check your computer for free" tests that are on some random virus scan sites. It'll say "Found 168 viruses; 14 worms; 2859 spyware! Omygosh! You better buy our software so you can remove them!" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/XmasEek.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, right. Chances are that you have no viruses at all. I checked with my McAfee right after one of those scans and it was like "You have cookies! :/" and that was it.

Also, I don't trust those virusscan ads that pop up. When my computer was going down down baby, those were the worst pop-ups I had (and I had alot). I bet they just give you a virus that advertises them, then they say "uhh, you should get our, uh, virus scanner because, uh, you have a bagillion viruses... yeah".

I've always been a fan of McAfee; its given me pleanty of fun protecion.

Also I highly suggest to everyone to get the McAfee Free Site Adviser . Basically, it goes in your web bar at the top of your internet and it tells you if a site is safe or not with a checkmark, or a ! warning, or a X (bad <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/memad.gif" alt="" /> ). But what if you really want to use that unsafe site? Well, just click on the warning thing, and it will open up another window giving you comeplete stats on the site: links to malicious sites, virus-full downloads and what virus is in them, people's posted opinions about the site's saftey, how many pop-ups there are, etc. You may want to play some flash games on a site, but then it says ! and you think "oh no!" but then you check the stats and its only a link to other bad sites that put the ! there.

Also, it gives you the checkmark;!;X on google searches. All in all: super useful. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Killerzzz

Pretty much the same sort of flack that all the others get! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" /> Stuff like: "What was once one of the best firewalls has become a useless resource hog, slow and unreliable. Quite often has issues with uninstalling as well." And the odd complaints about system crashes, configuration issues, and so forth.

Haven't seen any program yet that everyone is always happy with... Don't expect I ever will...