Anti Virus & Firewalls

[Flanker]

I run Norton Anti Virus software on my computer, I am due to renew my subscription shortly and have been offered an online renewal at 40% off, there is also an upgrade available for another $10 that includes the Norton Firewall. I would be interested to know what Anti Virus others use and what they recommend, and also is the Firewall any good or a hinderance.

Cheers,

Pete

[Brian]

Pete
Were you having trouble sleeping last night?

[Flanker]

Brian,

The Virus was keeping me up

Pete

[Richard B]

I guess that you use the "active update" feature of Norton Antivirus which I've heard is quite good.

The last I heard about Norton's Personal Firewall it was rated as pants, but may have changed. Have a look at Steve Gibson's site (yes, I know he's a bit of a controvertial fellow) - www.grc.com it tells you everything you need to know about personal firewalls (but were too afraid to ask). Also rates different firewalls - http://grc.com/lt/scoreboard.htm

Alternatively pop down to WH Smith and purchase a copy of PC Pro - great for choosing new hardware/software as they do all the testing for you, and maintain an "A-list" of best-of-class products.

[Flanker]

Thanks Pepper,

Norton Firewall seems to get a decent write up. I looked at the price of the upgrades see link below. What is funny is that if you decide not to buy after selecting one of the products, the system then offers you another 10% off to tempt you to buy it.

http://www.symantecstore.com/dr/v2/e...CACHE_ID=66665

Pete

[Richard B]

Ah, you'll get some sleep now

[Pete7]

OMG Pepper, you shouldn't have posted the WWW.grc.com site,
Pete will be up all night now worried about 13 year old kids attacking his computer.

On a more serious note, any idea how effective the free Zone Alarm firewall is?

Pete

[Garygee]

Have a look at one called zone alarm.

Think this is rated as quite good and used to be free but think there is a fee for use now.

The best option isto use a hardware firewall with NAT but thats about £300 ish as opposed to the software firewalls.

Regards Gary

[DJL]

Zone Alarm is supposed to be fairly good. It’s definitely better than running nothing at all. But remember it's just as important to keep your operating system up-to-date with security patches.

Does anybody know how good Draytek routers (Vigor 2600) are?


This thread should probably have been started in the 'Other Stuff' forum.

[Pete7]

Steve Gibbsons leak test goes straight through Zone Alarm which is a little worrying, might need the Pro software instead of the free one.

For those who have read his article on the DDOS attack surely the command

<netstat -a> gives all the information required. Yes advice pls?

Pete